Reformist Criticism of Pezeshkian’s Proposed Cabinet

As Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian presented his Cabinet choices to the Parliament August 11, he encountered criticism from the reformist camp, which accuses him of rewarding his political opponents instead of reformists, whose votes and campaigning efforts secured his electoral victory. There is some merit in this argument: Three out of 19 proposed Cabinet ministers served in the late President Ebrahim Raisi’s Cabinet. Five proposed ministers either served in cabinet, cabinet-level, or deputy minister capacities in President Hassan Rouhani’s pragmatic Cabinet. The reformists, on the other hand, are underrepresented, limited to the first vice president and perhaps a couple of ministers, whose reformist credentials are even less pronounced than Pezeshkian’s. Women’s representation is limited to the proposed minister of roads and urban development. Ethnic minorities such as Kurds and Baluchis are not represented and neither are the youth. Pezeshkian’s proposed Cabinet embodies politics as the art of the possible, reflects the subtleties of factional compromises, and aims to secure a vote of confidence from an otherwise politically hostile Parliament. However, should Pezeshkian also forsake the reformists, women, youth, and ethnic and religious minorities in lower-level political appointments, those groups will be correct in accusing him of compromising himself and his declared ideals, rather than engaging in compromises for the sake of the greater good. 

• August 11: Reformist Entekhab warned the “reformist Cabinet is infiltrated by principalists,” referring to the ministers from the late President Ebrahim Raisi’s Cabinet who are among Pezeshkian’s proposed ministers. 
• August 11: Azar Mansoori, chairwoman of the Reformist Front, which organizes supporters of former President Mohammad Khatami, in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, lamented: “This Cabinet was supposed to be a symbol of change and not the symbol of preservation of the status quo.”  
• August 11: Hossein Marashi, secretary-general of the Kargozaran Party, which constitutes the backbone of former President Hassan Rouhani’s network, in the party’s daily newspaper Sazandegi, called Pezeshkian’s proposed ministers “the possible, and not the desired, Cabinet.” 
• August 12: Ali Soufi, a reformist political analyst, said in an interview with reformist Shargh Daily: “This Cabinet resembles Rouhani’s first Cabinet … a look at the candidates for the Foreign Ministry and economic ministries shows that Pezeshkian will pursue a diplomacy similar to that of Rouhani’s and an economic policy equally resembling Rouhani’s.” 

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