The Iranian Parliament continued Wednesday morning its debate on the qualifications, plans and programs of President Khatami's cabinet appointees. The MPs will later decide whether to accept or reject them, reported the official Iranian news agency, IRNA.
Deputies will take the floor Wednesday to speak for or against the president's proposed ministers for housing and urban development, oil and energy.
The proposed ministers will later take the podium to defend their programs for the next administration, said the agency.
President Khatami may also once again take the podium to defend his appointees if time allows.
Secret balloting could take place later in the day, and the results will be announced afterwards, said IRNA.
President Khatami on Sunday delivered a speech before an open session of Parliament giving a brief review of his administration's past performance while defending his choices of ministers to fill his new cabinet.
President Khatami crushed his opponents in Iran's June 8 presidential elections, winning an unexpectedly decisive mandate to forge ahead with his controversial democratic reforms.
The president, who also won by a landslide in 1997 when he was first elected to office, will face several obstacles during his second term, including an economically devastating drought, and rampant attempts to smuggle drugs from Afghanistan to Europe via Iran.
But a key challenge comes from the ultraconservative judiciary branch and a range of other entrenched forces.
The 57-year-old president is accused by conservatives of undermining the Islamic regime by allowing unprecedented freedoms.
Throughout his re-election campaign, the mid-ranking cleric vowed that greater freedom was compatible with an Islamic regime, and the only way forward in a nation where two-thirds of the population is under 35.
In fact, ever since his election in 1997 Khatami has been struggling to alter the politics of Iran – Albawaba.com
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
