Bottom Line: Newly elected Iranian President Hassan Rohani has
chosen his new oil minister, but the Supreme Leader is sending signals
that the choice is not acceptable to hardliners.
Analysis: Rohani has chosen Bijan Namdar Zanganeh for the country’s new oil minister. Zanganeh has served as oil minister before, under president Mohammad Khatami. He left the post in 2005. Hardliners see him as too soft and there feathers were particularly ruffled by Zanganeh’s record of selling gas below market prices to foreign countries. That the Iranian Supreme Leader is against Zanganeh’s appointment was made clear in a scathing criticism of him that appeared in an Iranian newspaper controlled by the Supreme Leader’s camp.
Analysis: Rohani has chosen Bijan Namdar Zanganeh for the country’s new oil minister. Zanganeh has served as oil minister before, under president Mohammad Khatami. He left the post in 2005. Hardliners see him as too soft and there feathers were particularly ruffled by Zanganeh’s record of selling gas below market prices to foreign countries. That the Iranian Supreme Leader is against Zanganeh’s appointment was made clear in a scathing criticism of him that appeared in an Iranian newspaper controlled by the Supreme Leader’s camp.
