Wampum

I've been waiting for the announcement of, and parliamentary response to, nominees for the cabinet offices in the Ahmadinejad presidency. The Majlis voted yesterday, and for the first time since 1989, didn't approve all of the incoming administration's nominees. Left out in the cold were moniees Ali Saeedlou (Oil) and Hashemi (Welfare), both deputies in the Ahmadinejad administration of Tehran (City). Also left out in the cold were the editor-in-chief of the Tehran municipality-owned Hamshahri newspaper, Ali Akbar Ashari (Education), and Ali Ahmadi (Cooperatives), a contractor with close ties to the municipality,

Science and Technology Ministry nominee, (recall, Moeen held this post in a Katami administration) Mohammad Mehdi Zahedi sqeeked by on a margin of one vote.

Above the fold in the Mardomsalari (daily) was "Parliament did not vote for Ahmadinejad's special friends." Mahoud Ahmadinejad took the 17 newly approved ministers to the northeastern city of Mashhad for their first cabinet meeting today, along with two caretakers (oil and welfare).

INRA reports that Ahmadinejad wrote the four and expressed regret that they would not be able to "use your strength and commitment to clear the dust of sorrow from the face of our nation," Just what the "dust of sorrow" is on the face of Iran is left to the imagination.

Now why this matters is that Ahmadinejad messaged on poverty (Welfare and Cooperatives) and corruption (Oil), which sunk Rafsanjani, and Moeen messaged on -- was -- education and science personified. So, close Ahmadinejadiis on the core issues of the two elections were rejected by the Majlis.

If you read the BBC or the rest of the MSM, you'll be getting a rather different picture -- Ahmadinejad and a dubious lot of "hard liners" triumphant, rather than this.