Region | Iran
Iran appoints first woman minister
Iran's parliament Thursday approved the appointment of the first female cabinet minister in the Islamic Republic's 30-year history.
- Bloomberg
- Published: 23:22 September 3, 2009
- Image Credit: AP
- Female nominees, Susan Keshavarz as education minister, (left) Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi as health minister (centre) and Fatemeh Ajorlu as welfare and social security minister, stand in a press briefing by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and parliament speaker Ali Larijani, on Thursday.
Tehran: Iran's parliament Thursday approved the appointment of the first female cabinet minister in the Islamic Republic's 30-year history, accepting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's nomination.
Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi was approved as health minister, Parliamentary Speaker Ali Larijani said in a live state television broadcast. Two other female nominees, Fatemeh Ajorlou as minister for welfare and social security and Sousan Keshavarz as education minister, failed to get parliament's vote of confidence, Larijani said.
The parliament approved 18 of Ahmadinejad's nominees for his 21-member cabinet and rejected three, according to the vote.
By nominating women for ministerial posts, Ahmadinejad has "ushered a significant political turning point for women in Iran, something that not even his reformist arch-rival Mohammad Khatami was able to do," said Gala Riani, Middle East analyst for London-based business intelligence and forecasting company IHS Global Insight.
Riani said that Ahmadinejad's nomination of the three women "ought not to be read as a significant shift in the president's political stance".
"It may be a way of redeeming himself from some of the damaging fall-out of the post-election protests in which women of all ages and social backgrounds participated," she wrote in an e-mail.
In an August 30 speech before parliament Ahmadinejad said some 60 per cent of Iran's university graduates are female.
Having women in the cabinet is the "most significant cultural act" for the country and will "take the message of the Iranian revolution to the world."
News Editor's choice
-
6,000 cups and counting: Addicted to that tea
This cafeteria in Al Mamzar attracts thousands of customers daily, including the rich and not so rich
-
Swimming pool horror: Twins hospitalised
Twins rushed to hospital after collapsing from chlorine inhalation at swimming pool in their villa
-
Play your cards right with credit card interest
UAE Central Bank plans to cap interest rates, but are you paying thirty-five per cent now?
