Ahmadinejad's Iran cabinet now complete

Iran's main opposition leader repeats his call for new 'clean' election to take place.

TEHRAN - Iran's parliament on Sunday approved President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nominations for the final three posts in his 21-member cabinet after rejecting his initial candidates as being unqualified.

MP Hamid Reza Hajibabai, former interior minister Sadeq Mahsouli and Majid Namjou, a former deputy energy minister, were voted in to head the education, welfare and energy portfolios respectively.

On Saturday, newspapers wrongly named the proposed new energy minister as Ali Zabihi.

On September 3, parliament approved 18 members of the new Ahmadinejad cabinet, including the republic's first woman minister, a doctor who holds the health portfolio.

At the time parliament rejected the nominations for education, welfare and energy ministers on the grounds that they were unqualified.

During his first term, the president and parliament faced off more than once over proposed ministers MPs considered to be unsuitable.

Meanwhile, Iran's main opposition leader and defeated presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi has repeated his call for a new election, after unrest this month saw clashes between police and protesters, a reformist website reported on Saturday.

"The Green Path condemns violence... though we may suffer losses... we want political prisoners to be freed, we want guarantees for a clean (new) election, we seek freedom of expression and the press," he was quoted as saying.

In mid-August Mousavi said he will continue protesting against the disputed June 12 presidential election through a social movement called the "Green Path of Hope."

The pro-opposition Mowjcamp website reported that Mousavi on Friday met reformist cleric Mehdi Karroubi, another defeated presidential contender.

It said the pair discussed the events of November 4, a day on which Iran every year marks the storming in 1979 of the American embassy by students with a rally.

Since the June election, opposition supporters have staged protests at every opportunity in Tehran.