Rajai starts to pick Cabinet

Press, 13 August 1980, Page 8

Rajai starts to pick Cabinet

NZPArßputer Teheran The. newly endorsed Iranian Prime Minister (Mr Mohammad All Rajai) yesterday., began selecting the- nation’s first Government under a strictly Islamic constitution.

The devoutly religious former Education Minister has already said that his Ministers should, imitate Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeiny, who has called for a 100 per cent doctrinaire Government.

Mr Rajai, said after Monday’s overwhelming vote in his favour in the Majlis (Parliament) that he had not yet chosen the Cabinet. He said he had 10 days in which to present his Government to the president and Parliament, but speculation has already begun about possible candidates, most of them supporters of the cler-gy-dominated Islamic .Republican Party. Among top candidates for Ministerial posts is Jalaleddin Farsi, a Muslim militant who once trained with Palestinian guerrillas and is the I.R.P.’s first choice for the prime ministership. He is likely to be offered the Defence Ministry or the Foreign Affairs portfolio, according to Teheran newspapers. The dapper, Western-edu-cated Foreign Minister (Mr Sadeq Qotbzadeh) has said that he will not serve in the new Government, The official Pars news agency reported yesterday that ,Reza Sadr, the longest serving Cabinet Minister, in charge of trade, had handed his resignation to Ayatollah Khomeiny.

Whatever the composition of the Cabinet, many politi-

cal analysts in Teheran are certain that it could only widen the split between President Abolhassan BaniSadr and the 1.R.P.-domi-nated Majlis. The political in-fighting is expected to continue over the selection of Ministers. That could delay the formal installation of Mr Rajai as the country’s first prime minister since the • resignation of the provisional Prime Minister, Medhi Bazargan, a few days after militant students seized more than 50 hostages at the United States Embassy. In London yesterday, the Anglican Bishop of Iran described the captors of the British missionary Miss Jean Waddell as having “gone round the bend.”

Bishop DehqanbTafti said he was “astonished and appalled” that she was being held on spying charges. The bishop, who is at the Anglican retreat, The Grail, in Middlesex, said: “I am very worried for her. Already gunmen have attempted to kill her. “She is a wonderful lady, everybody knows that. All she did was to forgive her attackers.

“These accusations of spying are revolting and repulsive. These people have no idea why they are behaving this way. It is so strange. They are not behaving as Persians or Islamic. I hope and pray they come to their senses.”

It was reported yesterday that about 40 Iranian students who had been refused admission to Indian universities had begun an indefinite hunger strike outside the Iranian Embassy in New Delhi. • :