Iranians Lost Trust In Government, Two Opposing Politicians Say
A prominent conservative figure has told the IRGC-linked Tasnim news that "Not all reformists are seditionists," while criticizing the current government.
A prominent conservative figure has told the IRGC-linked Tasnim news that "Not all reformists are seditionists," while criticizing the current government.
The calibre of the political figure and the media outlet that has interviewed him may be taken as a green light for Iran's embattled reformists to actively take part in the 2024 parliamentary elections.
Conservatives loyal to Supreme Leaser Ali Khamenei coined the ‘seditionist’ label for those who protested Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial re-election in 2009.
The comment by Expediency Council member Mohammad Javad Bahonar came one day after friends and foes lashed out at President Ebrahim Raisi for giving a misleading report at a news conference about his success in tackling inflation. He had said that his economic policy reduced last year's 60 percent inflation rate to 35 percent.
Many critics, including government supporters reminded that same time last year the official annual inflation rate was around 42 percent, which remains almost the same despite claims of economic improvement.
Khamenei's advice to Raisi this week to follow a better and more convincing propaganda method was obliquely referring to the President's whitewashing of the failure of his economic team, after conservatives consolidated their power by taking over all three government branches and pushing aside ‘reformist’ politicians by barring them from elections.
Some reformists including former official and current political activist Ali Soufi were so disappointed by the situation marked by political barriers that they gave up running for any election. He said in his latest interview that "reformists no longer think of taking part in elections.”
Soufi complained that watchdogs including the conservative dominated Guardian Council that vets election candidates, tend to disqualify reformist figures and in such a situation competition is meaningless.
Pointing out the discriminatory situation Soufi said that while former president Hassan Rouhani had to submit the 2015 nuclear agreement for parliament’s approval, hardliners now say that their comrade, President Raisi does not need to do the same with the new nuclear deal. He pointed out that "the core of the Iranian pollical system simply does not trust anyone who is not a hardliner."
"The system even did not tolerate Iranian and US foreign ministers walking together during the negotiations," in 2015 he said. He also pointed out that many hardliners believe reformists are traitors only because they believe in dialogue and diplomatic relations. "Meanwhile, the Supreme Leader has said over and over that the West is not trustworthy," Soufi noted, adding that some hardliners characterize reformists as pro-Western elements.
He also noted that Iran's problem at the time being is that most Iranians, whether conservative, moderate or reformist, no longer trust the government and many evade the polls.
Nonetheless, the conservative figure Bahonar also criticized the current ultraconservative government "because many of their officials are not familiar with the way big jobs should be done." He added that the government makes ad-hoc problematic decisions such as announcing pay raise for workers that they cannot afford.
Assessing Iran's current political situation, Bahonar said that only less than 10 percent of Iranians are religious, revolutionary and follow the regime’s guidelines in every respect. He added that a lot of Iranians understand national interests and national security, but they are not interested in politics. They simply want to live. "I know many reformists who respect the Islamic revolution, the Islamic Republic and the Supreme Leader. Not all reformists are seditionists," he reiterated.
While conservative camp thought the disclosure would discredit the ‘Reformist’ government, the details of the case have affected the reputation of many of its figureheads, including clerics.
In a belated report on the case, IRGC-linked Fars news agency tried to cover up the corruption case at Mobarakeh Steel Company (MSC), claiming that a major part of the figure involved is about the difference in the price of steel at different times. The report further claimed that Iran International and BBC Persian have been putting gasoline on the fire to disturb the Iranian public's mind.
Moderate news website Rouydad24 observed in a report that hardliners at the Iranian parliament initially launched the investigation and published the results to discredit the reformists.
Rouydad24 said in the report that "The hardliners in parliament who disclosed the corruption case never thought that anyone would read a 300-page report to find out about the damning details. They thought people would only listen to their rhetoric about the case."
But social media activists published a ten-page document including the names of tens of Iranian hardliners and individuals and organizations linked to them who had received hefty sums from the Steel Plant. These included many media outlets, such as news agencies, newspapers, websites and even the state television that operates under the supervision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.
Reports also indicate that several social media influencers were also paid possibly to turn a blind eye to the illegal payments by the MSP. Saba Azarpeik, a whistle blower on social media later said that she was offered large sums of money to stop writing about the case.
When the disclosure backfired, it was revealed that many Friday prayer imams were paid by the steel plant. None was seen to refute the reports. Also, newspapers such as the IRGC-linked Javan and Khamenei-linked Kayhan did not try to deny having received money from the MSC. Those who issued denials in the reform camp included a newspaper publisher who said he had received hundreds of billions of rials (tens of thousands of dollars) for writing only three articles about the steel plant.
According to Rouydad24, even some of the lawmakers involved in the investigation were themselves implicated in the corruption case.
The Majles (parliament) that had initially ordered, conducted and published the results of the investigation tried to distance itself from the matter and sent the case to the Judiciary for further investigation.
Iran's Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said subsequently that a special court and a special prosecutor have been tasked to launch an investigation into the case. However, no further action seems to have been taken, at least in public, to address the concerns, other than President Ebrahim Raisi's order to fire the MSC managers who violated the law.
To explain the magnitude of the money involved in the case, 3.5 billion dollars, some Iranian social media users reminded that Elon Musk's investment on the Spex project this year was $2 billion.A study conducted by social media researcher Mohammad Rahbari said some 17,000 tweets in Persian were posted by Iranians on the MSC corruption case in less than one week, adding that half of "liked" posts were those that criticized the government and reiterated that Iran was plagued by systematic corruption.