Iran’s Majlis sacks interior minister over forgery
Published: Tuesday, November 04, 2008
13:00GMT—8:00AM/EST
KORDAN – IMPEACHMENT – MAJLIS
Washington, 4 November (IranVNC)—Iran’s Majlis [parliament] today voted to sack Interior Minister Ali Kordan, for lying about holding an honorary degree from Britain’s Oxford University.
The vote was seen as a power struggle between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who on Saturday had called the impeachment hearing “illegal”, and his opponents, including reformers and moderate conservatives, before next year’s presidential election, in which Ahmadinejad is expected to run.
Even some of the hardline press have supported the impeachment.
The hardline Kayhan newspaper quoted some Majlis Principle-ists as saying that Kordan’s impeachment was a legitimate “right” of the Majlis and would indeed be in the interest of the government.
The conservative Resalat newspaper published a commentary supporting impeachment as an “undeniable and legitimate” right of the Majlis, but argued that the predicted result of today’s impeachment of Kordan does not mean the collapse of the government.
Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said that 188 deputies among the 247 present voted to impeach Kordan, while 45 deputies opposed the action and 14 lawmakers abstained.
The charges brought against Kordan were over his insincerity in offering “fake” academic credentials to the Majlis, and using these credentials to receive a higher salary and to serve on the academic board of a university.
Kordan’s impeachment was a “major” trial for the country and the system, the official IRNA news agency reported Larijani as saying. The hearing “showed that the eighth Majlis does not neglect defending the nation’s rights and implementing the law and righting any wrongs,” he added.
The impeachment brings to 10 the number of changes in Ahmadinejad’s 21-member cabinet. Under Iran’s constitution, the entire cabinet would have to receive a new vote of confidence if half the ministers change.
Analysts say that the impeachment shows that the president is losing support even among some of his traditional, hardline backers, Reuters reports.
Bijan Nobaveh, a conservative deputy for Tehran, said today that the motive behind “the interior minister’s impeachment is to restore the Islamic Republic’s integrity,” IRNA reports.
Ahmadinejad said on Sunday that he would not attend the hearing, arguing that the impeachment of ministers should be related to the performance of their duties, and not to “bits and pieces of torn paper” – a derogatory reference to academic qualifications.
Kordan, who took up his position last August, admitted to holding the fake degree on 30 September, but insisted that he had acted in good faith. In a letter to Ahmadinejad, he wrote that he had filed a complaint against an alleged intermediary who had tricked him into believing that the degree was genuine.
In addition to Oxford University saying it had no record of Kordan’s degree, the president of Iran’s Azad University had also said that Kordan had received neither a Bachelor’s nor a Master’s degree from that institution, as he had claimed.
In his address to the Majlis today, Kordan said that he had served the country for 30 years, and that his service to the government did not require a degree.
Sources: IRNA, Reuters
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