Minister of Education in Hassan Rouhani's Government Resigns

Reports from Iran indicate that the Minister of Education has joined the list of resigning ministers. This is the third minister from Hassan Rouhani's government to resign in the past two days. On Wednesday, October 28, news agencies Tasnim and Fars, close to the Revolutionary Guards, reported the resignation of Ali Asghar Fani and the appointment of Mohammad Bahtayee as the caretaker of the Ministry of Education, citing two members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. The official news agency of Iran, IRNA, also confirmed this news. Initially, on Tuesday, the resignation of the Minister of Education, as well as the Ministers of Culture and Islamic Guidance and Sports and Youth, was reported, but Mr. Fani denied this news. However, on Wednesday, he sent a letter to Hassan Rouhani, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, stating that he is "ready to act according to your decision." Mr. Fani added: "Despite being fully prepared to attend the impeachment session and present a three-year performance report of the Ministry of Education in the government of Hope and Prudence and respond to the questions of the esteemed members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, I hereby announce my readiness to act on any decision of Your Excellency regarding my continued work." Akbar Ranjbarzadeh, a representative from Asadabad in the Parliament, told Fars News Agency that the President of Iran considered this letter as a resignation and agreed to it. According to Fars News Agency, the Minister of Education was also absent from today's meeting of some "national elites" with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic. Alireza Salimi, a member of the Education and Research Commission of the Parliament, also told Tasnim News Agency that with the appointment of a caretaker for the Ministry of Education, the issue of the minister's impeachment in the Iranian Parliament has also been canceled. The impeachment proposal for Mr. Fani was submitted on Tuesday with 45 signatures from the Parliament's presiding board, and he had expressed his readiness to respond to the representatives' criticisms. If the impeachment session had been held, it would have been the fourth time that ministers of the eleventh government were impeached. Reports from Iranian news agencies indicate that following the resignations of Ali Jannati and Mahmoud Goudarzi from the Ministries of Culture and Islamic Guidance and Sports and Youth, the Iranian Cabinet accepted their resignations on Wednesday. Currently, Seyed Abbas Salehi, the Deputy Minister of Culture, has been appointed as the caretaker of this ministry. ISNA news agency reported that Nasrollah Sajadi has been introduced as the caretaker of the Ministry of Sports and Youth. Hossein Ali Amiri, the parliamentary deputy of the President of Iran, told Fars News Agency on Wednesday that the Ministers of Culture and Sports and Youth were absent from today's Cabinet meeting. He added that in today's meeting, "the President spoke about the resignations of the mentioned individuals and the necessity of cabinet reconstruction, which made it clear that the absence of those two ministers was due to the acceptance of their resignations by the President." According to Fars, Seyed Mohammad Ali Shahidi Mahallati, the head of the Martyrs and Veterans Affairs Foundation, has also announced that new ministers will be introduced to the Parliament next week. In this context, "two ministers" of Rouhani's government resigned "in order to reconstruct and strengthen the eleventh cabinet."