The motion to question Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Parliament has been halted because 30 MPs have withdrawn their names, IRNA reports, leaving too few MPs in support of the motion to keep it alive.
Two weeks ago, Ali Motahari, one of the authors of the motion, presented the Presiding Board of the Parliament with the signatures of 100 MPs. According to the constitution, at least a quarter of the MPs in Parliament must back a move to summon the president for questioning, or at least 73 of the current 290 MPs.
While some MPs have said the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei opposes such a motion, Ali Motahari insists the leader has made no concrete statement.
The attacks against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his supporters have intensified since he fell into an open dispute with Ayatollah Khamenei over the appointment of cabinet ministers.
The motion against Ahmadinejad lists 10 topics for questioning as follows:
– the failure to provide the necessary funds for Tehran’s subway system
– the delay in the appointment of a minister of sports and youth
– the lack of clarity in the official unemployment rates
– explanations about the allotment of cultural budgets
– the extreme methods used to carry out changes in government subsidies
– his 11-day delay in carrying out Ayatollah Khamenei’s orders to reinstate Minister of Intelligence Heydar Moslehi
– the humiliating dismissal of Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki
– Ahmadinejad’s statement that Parliament no longer holds much power
– the lack of cooperation in carrying out modesty and Hijab (Islamic dress) legislation
– the promotion of the “Iranian School of Thought” by the president’s supporters and his failure to distance himself from the “deviant current”
Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, who has often spoken of Iran’s brand of Islam as the “Iranian School of Thought,” has been accused by the establishment’s conservative elite of elevating Iranian nationalism above Islam. He is also accused by some of leading a “deviant current” that is trying to destabilize the Islamic Republic.
