Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has visited parliament today to respond to questions of discontented MPs, ITAR-TASS reports.
Anti-presidential lobby filed invitations for the president to the parliament on several occasions, but received declines. MPs initiated impeachment in mid-2011. Their discontent was caused by some reshuffles. Iranian Supreme Leader Auatollah Ali Khamenei urged MPs to stop criticism.
MP Ali Motakhari, one of the most persistent critics of Ahmadinejad, asked the president about economic reforms and reshuffles of the last 2 years. It is the first such questioning of the president at the parliament in the history of Iran.
Ahmadinejad had to answer 10 questions, regarding such topics as subway construction in Tehran, economic growth and budget.
Ahmadinejad said that the foreign monetary fund of Iran has no finances for the subway. According to the law, the government needs to receive finances from the IMF first. Mahmoud Bahmani, President of the Iranian Central Bank, said that the bank’s reserves increased by $9 billion.
The Iranian president spent several hours answering questions, but he did not give any clear view on any of them. He denied most complaints, laughed off some of them and provoked irritation among some MPs, Gazeta.ru reports.
MP Mohammad Reza Khabbazom made an outburst, saying that the parliament is no place for exchange of jokes. He said that Ahmadinejad could have given better answers by consulting MPs beforehand.
