Lawmakers in the Iranian parliament have voted to approve Mohammad Ali Nikbakht to lead the country's Ministry of Agriculture Jihad (MAJ).
In an open session of the parliament on Tuesday, lawmakers debated Nikbakht's qualifications for assuming the post of Iran's agriculture minister.
Legislators cast 198 votes in favor and 40 against Nikbakht's appointment as head of MAJ, while there were 10 abstention votes.
The newly-elected minister has previously served as MAJ's Deputy of Planning and Economic Affairs, Head of the Agriculture Jihad Organization of Sistan and Baluchestan province, and CEO of the Central Organization for Rural Cooperatives of Iran.
He is the fist Iranian Cabinet minister after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 who hails from Sistan and Baluchestan, a relatively impoverished region in southeast Iran.