Comment by zozbot234
3 days ago
Is it "royal overreach" when a prime minister voluntarily resigns and the king/queen then formally picks someone else (after negotiations for parliamentary support) to legitimately take that place? That would be news to an awful lot of people in the UK, among other places. When you explicitly resign from power, you don't get to take it back by force absent new elections. It's a done deal.
Mosaddegh didn't storm the palace. The Shah officially reinstated him. If the Shah's appointment of Qavam was legitimate, then his reappointment of Mosaddegh was equally legitimate. You can't have it both ways, either the Shah had constitutional authority to appoint prime ministers or he didn't. As for "taking it back by force", mass public protests aren't the prime minister using force. Mosaddegh didn't have a militia. He had popular support. In a democracy, public pressure influencing government decisions isn't illegitimate, it's the whole point.
And in parliamentary systems, prime ministers who resign can return to power without new elections if they command enough support. It's happened in the UK, Israel, Australia and elsewhere. There's no constitutional rule that resignation is permanent and irreversible.
The question is whether Mosaddegh was constitutionally appointed and had parliamentary backing. In July 1952, the answer to both was yes.