Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s cabinet minister nominee for the ministry of information and communications technology Mohammad Hassan Nami, a former member of Iran’s military, won the parliament’s confirmation within an hour. He received 177 votes in favor from the total 243. He had been the caretaker of the government’s communications agency since February 2, 2013.

As a member of the country’s military, general Nami was the deputy chairman of the joint chiefs of staff and the head of its geographical agency.

Iran’s official news agency, IRNA, reported that Nami had a PhD in government management from North Korea’s Kim Il Sung University. The president’s website refers to Nami as a “general brigadier” in the military.

Iran’s parliament, the Majlis, last year passed a law that banned one cabinet minister from leading another cabinet ministry as a caretaker, a move that was widely interpreted to be against Ahmadinejad’s efforts to bypass the Majlis oversight and confirmation of cabinet level appointments. Last year Ahmadinejad removed his minister of communications Reza Taghipour and appointed the then minister of roads as the caretaker of the ministry of communications, which the Majlis rejected and gave the president 15 days to nominate a new minister for the communications portfolio.

After the removal of Taghipour from his post last year, the government announced that it intended to merge the ministry of information and communications technology with the ministry of urban development under a new cabinet ministry. But in another challenge to Ahmadinejad, the Majlis passed a separate law banning such a merger.

Tehran municipality’s newspaper the Hamshahri wrote that Nami had authored some 30 books ranging from aerospace to geopolitics. It wrote that Nami who spoke fluent English had also participated in the development of Iran’s national internet infrastructure project, and the Basir website which is known as Iran’s Google Earth, among other high visibility projects.