TEHRAN President Mohammad Khatami will be sworn in for his second term in office in the Majlis today.

The Majlis deputies yesterday finally chose the two legal experts of the Guardian Council out of four nominees proposed by the Judiciary and put an end to a constitutional crisis that had prevented the investiture of President Mohammad Khatami by Parliament on Sunday.

The fact is that what the MPs did yesterday could have been done by them on Saturday, and the swearing-in ceremony of the president could have been conducted on Sunday as scheduled.

Although nobody can deny that it is the right of Majlis deputies to vote for a nominee or reject him, what happened during the past few days indicated that the majority faction in the Majlis is given to party politics and factional motives rather than national interests.

The issue of legal experts was referred to the Expediency Council because of the improper attitude of the majority faction, while the MPs themselves could have easily settled the issue if they had set aside their parochial factional attitude.

The Expediency Council also comprises members of both mainstream political factions in the country. However, these members, who are all veteran politicians enjoying political wisdom and prudence, never try to achieve their factional objectives at the cost of national interests. This is why during some three and a half hours of discussions on Monday, they easily managed to find a solution to the crisis that had been created by the majority faction in Parliament out of a small issue.

Ironically, the first problem for President Khatami in his second term was created by the Khordad-2 Front Caucus in the Majlis, as the insistence of these representatives on rejecting the legal experts proposed by the Judiciary caused a delay in investiture of the president and the introduction of his new cabinet to the Majlis.

If the Majlis deputies affiliated to the Khordad 2 Front continue to make crises out of trivial issues, tarnishing the image of the Parliament and the country alike, President Khatami will surely have a hard time ahead during his second term in office.