Interim Government of Iran (1979)
The Interim Government of Iran was the first government established in Iran after the Iranian Revolution. It was formed by the order of Ruhollah Khomeini on 4 February 1979, and headed by Mehdi Bazargan. For a week, both Bazargan and Shapour Bakhtiar, the Shah's last appointed prime minister, claimed to be the legitimate leader of the Iranian government; the dispute ended when Bakhtiar fled to France on 11 February 1979. Bazargan then introduced a seven-member cabinet on 14 February, with Ebrahim Yazdi named foreign minister.
The constitution of the newly-formed Islamic Republic of Iran was adopted by referendum on 24 October 1979, with plans to encode it on 3 December 1979. Before that could happen, however, the Interim Government resigned en masse on 6 November, just two days after the takeover of the American embassy. As a result, the Council of the Islamic Revolution took over. It formed the second Interim Government of [Iran (1979–80)], which led the country until the establishment of the first Islamic Consultative Assembly on 12 August 1980. Bazargan was elected to the Assembly, representing the Tehran district.
Formation
When Khomeini returned to a revolutionary Iran after his 15-year exile, he sought a transitional government to govern until a new constitution could be ratified. However, he faced opposition from Shapour Bakhtiar, whom the outgoing Shah had tasked with establishing a civlian administration On 4 February 1979, Khomeini issued a decree appointing Bazargan, a veteran member of the Freedom Movement of Iran, as the prime minister of a "Provisional Islamic Revolutionary Government".A decree stated:
Elaborating further on his decree, Khomeini made it clear that Iranians were religiously obliged to obey Bazargan and the new government.
As a man who, though the guardianship that I have from the holy lawgiver , I hereby pronounce Bazargan as the Ruler, and since I have appointed him, he must be obeyed. The nation must obey him. This is not an ordinary government. It is a government based on the sharia. Opposing this government means opposing the sharia of Islam...revolt against God's government is a revolt against God. Revolt against God is blasphemy.
Khomeini's statement came before the Iranian Army announced it would remain neutral in conflicts between revolutionaries and guardians of the government left in place by the Shah. Bakhtiar, rendered powerless, resigned the same day the army announced its decision, 11 February 1979, which is now officially remembered in Iran as the Islamic Revolution's Victory Day.
The new provisional government, however, was described as "subordinate" to the Revolutionary Council, having had difficulty dealing with conflicting messages and decision-making from the latter.
Members of the cabinet
According to historian Mohammad Ataie, the cabinet consisted of two main factions: moderates and radicals. Most of the cabinet members were nationalist veterans and sympathizers of the Freedom Movement of Iran, with a few from the National Front.Bazargan reshuffled his cabinet several times following the resignation of ministers who were unable to deal with parallel sources of power. In several cases, a ministry was supervised by an acting minister or by Bazargan himself.
The list of members on the cabinet was as follows:
Resignation
Bazargan and his entire cabinet resigned on 6 November 1979, just two days after a student group approved by Khomeini took sixty-six American Embassy officials hostage. In his resignation letter to Khomeini, Bazargan lamented that "repeated interferences, inconveniences, objections and disputes have made unable to continue duties."Power then passed into the hands of the Council of the Islamic Revolution. Bazargan had been a supporter of the original revolutionary draft constitution rather than theocracy by Islamic jurist, and his resignation was received by Khomeini without protest, who stated that "Mr. Bazargan...was a little tired and preferred to stay on the sidelines for a while." Khomeini later described his appointment of Bazargan as a "mistake." Bazargan, on the other hand, described the government as a "knife without blade."