Marzieh Dastjerdi, the health minister and the only woman minister in Ahmadinejad\u2019s cabinet was sacked, Iranian regime\u2019s state-run television reported on December 27.\u00a0\u00a0 Her dismissal was swiftly followed by the forced resignation of Tehran medical faculty chief Bagher Larijani.<\/p>\n
The removals are the result of several months of power struggle between Ahmadinejad and Larijani brothers over this ministry.<\/p>\n
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On Thursday, Ahmadinejad appointed Mohammad Hassan Tarighat Monfared as the health minister without bothering to announce dismissal of Dastjerdi.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Marzieh Dastjerdi said in a published note that \u201cher achievements in the health ministry\u201d were due to \u201cprevention of unprofessional intervention.\u201d<\/p>\n
It is said that one of the tensions were largely caused by\u00a0 Ahmadinejad\u2019s opposition to Bagher Larijani acting both as deputy health minister and chairman of policy council having full power in the health ministry, and at the same time chairing the faculty of medical sciences at the University of Tehran. Bagher Larijani\u2019s powers have prompted many complains by those close to Ahmadinejad asking \u201cwhy Bagher Larijani who chairs the faculty of medical sciences has become number one person in the ministry?\u201d<\/p>\n
In the meantime, the factional infighting resulted in some facts regarding\u00a0 drug crisis in Iran to surface due to factional infighting surfaced.<\/p>\n
Marzieh Dastjerdi had revealed several times in the past that the foreign currency allocated for drug purchase is not provided to the health ministry but are used for importing medical equipment with drug purchase having the lowest priority.<\/p>\n
In addition, she had said: \u201cwe can circumvent transfer of currency abroad unofficially but cannot circumvent the problem of currency allocation by the central bank inside the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
The central bank officials, however, announced that it was the health minister herself who spent the money allocated for the ministry on importing cosmetics.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile the websites advocating the supreme leader criticized Ahmadinejad for appointing Dastjerdi to that position 3 years ago as it was clear from beginning that she was a politician with a \u201cdifferent political tendency.\u201d (Raja News, Dec. 27).<\/p>\n
On Tuesday December 25, the website that publishes cabinet\u2019s views wrote: \u201cDastjerdi was secretary of the women\u2019s committee of Larijani\u2019s election campaign.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the experience of having \u201ca woman minister\u201d in the cabinet, the website wrote: \u201cif Ahmadinejad had preferred capabilities to appointing a women minister, with ideas different than that of the government, in a bid to gain fantasy prestige in the media, we would not have witnessed this chaos in the country\u2019s health field.\u201d<\/p>\n
Observers believe the dismissals signal of a greater crisis to come as the regime\u2019s presidential election scheduled for June 2013 approaches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marzieh Dastjerdi, the health minister and the only woman minister in Ahmadinejad’s cabinet was sacked, Iranian regime’s state-run television reported on December 27. Her dismissal was swiftly followed by the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[175],"class_list":{"0":"post-12588","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-society","7":"tag-updated"},"yoast_head":"\n