 |
Iranian President to be Sworn in Wednesday
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami will be sworn in for a second term on Wednesday, Majlis (parliament) Speaker Mehdi Karrubi announced Tuesday.
Karrubi made the remark to the parliament after it approved by a "relative majority" two candidates for the country's oversight Guardian Council (GC) to end a row between the reformist-controled parliament and the conservative judiciary, clearing the way for Khatami's investiture, the official IRNA news agency reported.
The move came in the wake of a decision by the Expediency Council (EC), the country's highest arbitration body to solve disputes between the parliament and the GC, on ways of filling the vacant GC seats, Karrubi told the lawmakers.
After an emergency meeting with the disputing sides Monday night, the EC ruled that if the judiciary-named candidates for the two vacant GC seats do not secure an absolute majority in the first round of voting on Tuesday, whoever gain the "relative majority" will be elected in the second round.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei confirmed the ruling afterwards.
On Saturday, the reformist-majority Majlis approved only one of the candidates introduced by the conservative judiciary for three vacant GC seats and twice rejected all other candidates for the rest of seats.
As a result, the supreme leader postponed Khatami's investiture scheduled for last Sunday, and ordered EC Chairman Ali Akbar Rafsanjani to put forward a proposal to end the row.
Earlier Tuesday, lawmakers rejected by an "absolute majority" four nominees to the GC in the first poll. Finally, Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei and Mohsen Esmaeili were approved with 67 votes and 62 out of 243 votes.
The 12-member GC, which oversees laws passed by the parliament to ensure their conformity with the Islamic teachings and the Constitution, comprises six jurists appointed by the supreme leader and six lawyers elected by the parliament from a list prepared by the judiciary.
Selections for half the council's elected positions are renewed every three years.
Khatami was re-elected in a landslide victory in the June 8 presidential election. According to the Constitution, the president-elect should be sworn in at the parliament before taking office.
In This Section
|