Khatami investiture today

By Kesava Menon

MANAMA (BAHRAIN) AUG. 7. The formal investiture ceremony in Parliament for Iran's President, Mr. Mohammed Khatami, in his second and last term in office is to take place tomorrow. Mr. Khatami's investiture by Parliament had been held up pending the resolution of a dispute between the legislative body on the one hand and the judiciary and supra-legislative body, the Council of Guardians, on the other.

This dispute was reported to have been overcome through a debate in yet another constitutional body, the Expediency Council, overnight and at a session of the Parliament this morning. But with few details available it is not clear whether Mr. Khatami and his reform-minded supporters in Parliament have won, made a compromise or surrendered to their conservative opponents.

The Parliament Speaker, Mr. Mehdi Karrubi, who made the announcement about the investiture ceremony and the result of today's Parliament vote merely said that two members had been elected to the Guardians Council. The Guardians Council, which has power to vet legislation to ensure that it adheres to the Constitution and its Islamic principles, has 12 members. Of these six are appointed by the Supreme Religious Leader and the rest are selected by Parliament from a list presented by the judiciary. In the current dispute, the Parliament had rejected the nominations forwarded by the judiciary for two vacancies in the Guardians Council on the grounds that the nominees were both too political and too inexperienced in legal affairs.

With the Parliament and the judiciary in a dead-lock, the Leader, Ayatollah Syed Ali Khamenei, had ordered that the dispute be settled by the Expediency Council which has been set up to arbitrate between Parliament and the Guardians. At its meeting overnight, the Expediency Council decided that the selection of candidates to the Guardians Council should be done first through an absolte majority and then by a relative majority. In today's parliamentary vote, four candidates whose names had been recommended by the judiciary were said to have been voted out by an absolute majority while two candidatures were approved by a relative majority. With no details available as to the identities of the candidates involved, or their affiliations, it is impossible to make any sense out of this procedure. All that is clear is that the last obstacle to Mr. Khatami's swearing-in appears to have been overcome.

But what was more important to know is whether Mr. Khatami enters his second term from a position of strength after having defeated the conservatives' game-plan.

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Section  : International
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