Minister of Science, Research and Technology Reza Faraji-Dana was impeached after 145 MPs, out of the 270 present, voted in favor of impeachment. This came as a shock to many Iranian observers because prior to the impeachment session, it was believed that Faraji-Dana would receive a vote of confidence from the parliament.

However, things changed when, on the morning of Aug. 20, the Followers of the Leader faction (Rahrovan-e Velayat) decided that it would not follow any particular policy regarding the impeachment and that its members would decide individually on this issue. The management committee of the Followers faction had previously mentioned that it opposed the idea of impeaching Faraji-Dana. The impeachment motion was presented by the Endurance Front (supporters of hard-line cleric Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi) and the Association of the Devotees of the Islamic Revolution.

Eventually, the entire Principlist faction of the parliament, headed by Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel, joined the impeachment bloc. However, a review of decisions made in the 9th parliament shows that together all these factions had only 90 members. Supporters of the impeachment managed to persuade 50 more MPs, who were either independent or belonged to the Followers of the Leader faction, to join them. As a result, although the proposal for impeachment came from the radical Principlists, its success was due to some of the moderate MPs joining the Principlist MPs.

Faraji-Dana's impeachment started approximately a month ago when, in the early days of Ramadan, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei met with a number of university professors and warned against universities being turned into political groups and how such a thing would weaken the scientific atmosphere of the universities.