Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, appointed one
woman, Farzaneh Sadegh, to his cabinet as minister of roads and urban
development. This is only the second time in the 45-year history of the Islamic
Republic that a woman has made it into the cabinet. Even so, she faced strong
opposition in the Majlis, or parliament, whose members must approve all cabinet
appointments.
The deputies claimed they objected to her appointment not
because of her sex but because of her lack of qualifications. But Sadegh is
hardly unqualified: she is an engineer by training, has experience serving in
different parts of the government, including as deputy minister of urban
planning, and proved herself a tough match for objecting parliamentarians. She
reminded them that she has always spoken her mind, objected to policies of
previous administrations in which she served, and owes nothing to anyone.
Nevertheless, President Pezeshkian was able to overcome
parliamentary opposition to her appointment by invoking the name of the Supreme
Leader, Ali Khamenei. Pezeshkian reported that Sadegh was the choice of
Ayatollah Khamenei himself and that the highest authority in the land (meaning
the Supreme Leader) had approved his cabinet choices. Thus, the deputies
dutifully fell into line and gave Sadegh their vote of confidence.
The parliament’s reaction to Sadegh as a cabinet choice
repeats a common pattern in the history of the Islamic Republic. Previously, President
Mahmoud Ahmadi Nejad tried to name three women for cabinet posts; the
parliament rejected two and approved one, Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi as minister
of health. She was not reappointed in Ahmadi-Nejad’s second term due to a
fallout with the president.
Other previous presidents, including ‘reformist’ presidents
Hashemi-Rafsanjani, Mohammad Khatami, and Hassan Rouhani, did not even try to
name women to their cabinets, wishing to avoid disputes with parliament. The
ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi followed suit. A handful of women have been
elected to successive parliaments, ranging from four in the first parliament
(1979-1983) to 16 in the current parliament, but the Majlis has remained a
bastion of male members.
Presidents have sought to appease the women’s constituency
by appointing women as advisors and vice presidents (Presidents can appoint
several vice presidents, assigning them different responsibilities). The reason
is simple: the president does not need parliamentary approval for such
appointments. Presidents Khatami, Rouhani, and Ahmadi Nejad named women
variously as vice presidents for environmental affairs, women’s affairs, and
cultural affairs.
Following this tradition, Pezeshkian named two women as
vice-presidents: Shina Ansari, a career environmentalist, as head of the
Department of the Environment, and Zahra Behrouz-Azar as vice-president for
women’s affairs. Behrouz-Azar has been a critic of the morality police and
their harsh crackdown, arrests, and mistreatment of women during the 2022
protest movement and against the enforcement of the hijab.
President Pezeshkian also appointed Fatemeh Mohajerani as
the government spokesperson, a first in the history of the Islamic Republic.
According to the Tehran Times, a daily English paper in Iran, she has
a doctorate in business administration from the Edinburgh campus of Heriot-Watt
University in Scotland. Her career has been mostly as an educator.
Activist women are waiting to see whether President
Pezeshkian will curb the morality police and provide a safe environment for
women on the streets, in public places, and on university campuses, and whether
he will secure the release of the many young women and men serving long prison
sentences. He recently told his minister of higher education to look into
reinstating university professors and students dismissed for participating in
the 2022 ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ protests. For the moment, the public has
adopted a ‘wait and see’ attitude towards the president, but their patience may
not last long.
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