Iran parliament rejects Raisi's pick for education minister
Despite its close alliance with the hard-line president, the parliament seemed to have bowed to public arguments that the nominee was unfit for the key post.
After a heated parliamentary session Nov. 16, Iranian lawmakers refused to give a vote of confidence to Masoud Fayyazi, who had been proposed by hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi to run Iran's Education Ministry.
The 46-year-old conservative jurisprudence expert fell short by 16 votes of the required threshold of approval from half of the 260 present lawmakers.
The vote came as little surprise. It was preceded by an internal meeting of the parliament's Education Committee where Fayyazi's nomination was rejected over his "lack of experience."
"He has not even worked as a principal at a small primary school in the remotest towns and is [thus] incapable of sorting out the educational system's problems," said conservative parliamentarian Jalil Rahimi ahead of the vote. The statement echoed growing concerns about the nominee's "incompetence" already raised by other politicians, critics and teachers.
