Top leader nudged Iran assembly to back Cabinet

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer

TEHRAN, Iran – Iran's supreme leader intervened behind the scenes with lawmakers to assure that parliament largely approved the Cabinet of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a top lawmaker said Friday, a key sign of support for the embattled president from the country's most powerful figure.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneni has had friction with Ahmadinejad over the past month and has at times backed the president's rivals within the conservative camp.

But the intervention suggested that Khamenei's higher priority is to shore up Ahmadinejad in the face of the pro-reform opposition, which calls his government illegitimate.

Conservatives in parliament had threatened to oppose Ahmadinejad over many of his Cabinet nominees, which would have been an embarrassment to the president.

Lawmaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar said he believed up to nine nominees would have been rejected if Khamenei hadn't intervened, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.

Bahonar said Khamenei sent a private message to parliament members asking them to approve the Cabinet and support Ahmadinejad in the crisis following his disputed re-election.

"The supreme leader's sharp-sightedness caused the parliament to change its assessments," Fars quoted Bahonar as saying.

Iran's conservative-dominated parliament on Thursday approved most of Ahmedinejad's choices for key Cabinet posts — 18 out of 21 nominees. The strong show of support surprised even Ahmadinejad's conservative backers.

Bahonar said Khamenei's message to parliament members indicated he was "interested in seeing the Cabinet members be approved and start their job" and urged the lawmakers to "trust the president's confidence in his nominees."

In the five-day debate on the Cabinet before the vote, the parliament had questioned the experience and expertise of some of Ahmadinejad's nominees.

But in the end, the broad mandate from the chamber was a boost for Ahmadinejad, who the opposition claims stole the June 12 election through massive fraud. The conservative-dominated legislature also named the first woman minister since the 1979 Islamic Revolution and approved a defense minister who is a suspected mastermind in the bombing of an Argentine Jewish center that killed 85 people.

The opposition alleges the election was rigged in Ahmadinejad's favor and that pro-reform challenger Mir Hossein Mousavi was the true winner. Mousavi and another defeated reformist challenger Mahdi Karroubi have dismissed Ahmadinejad's government as "illegitimate."

After the June election, Iranian security forces, including the Revolutionary Guard and pro-government Basij militia, crushed mass street protests against Ahmadinejad's re-election in a heavy crackdown in which hundreds of protesters were arrested.

The opposition said on Friday that at least 72 protesters were killed and that many detainees were tortured or abused in prison. The pro-reform norooznews.org Web site identified the victims and detailed their abuse and circumstances of death, but the report could not be independently confirmed.

Iranian officials have said at least 30 people died in the post-election turmoil — Iran's worst unrest since the Islamic Revolution. The country's chief prosecutor said about 200 protesters and opposition figures remain in detention.

Ahmadinejad has been struggling against a variety of internal rifts amid a legitimacy crisis, but he counts on the support of the powerful Revolutionary Guard and Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters in Iran.

The parliament's approval has also been considered a vote of confidence for the harsh government crackdown on political opponents and tough stance against Western pressure for talks on the nation's nuclear program.