Lobe Log:

The photo of hard-line Iranian MP Hamid Rasai said it all. After 145 members of the Parliament (out of 290) voted to remove the minister of sciences, research and technology, Reza Faraji-Dana, Rasai gleefully held up a note that says, “Larijani’s doping didn’t work.” In Rasai’s telling, Larijani’s surreptitious attempt to push through the minister was unsuccessful.

After a year of relative political calm, initiated by the presidential election of Hassan Rouhani, and their seeming marginalization, the hard-line MPs close to the Steadfastness Front, estimated at no more than 50, were able to break the ranks of conservatives and draw enough support from the caucus that supported Ali Larijani’s speakership to remove Faraji-Dana, the minister deemed closest to the reformists and largely supported by the university students and faculty.

In turn, Rouhani immediately appointed Faraji-Dana as his advisor for scientific and educational affairs and even more pointedly designated Mohammad-Reza Najafi as the caretaker for the ministry. Najafi was one of the three ministers who did not receive sufficient votes to become minister of education when Rouhani introduced his cabinet in August 2013. By law, Rouhani has three months to appoint a new minister who will have to be confirmed by the Parliament...

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