Financial Corruption in Guardian Council; Intermediaries Demanding Billions for Candidate Qualification Approval
Mahmoud Sadeghi, a member of Parliament, has reported that intermediaries have been receiving billions of tomans for approving the qualifications of candidates in the eleventh parliamentary elections of the Islamic Consultative Assembly.
Mr. Sadeghi wrote on Monday, January 28, in a Twitter message: “In this round of elections, intermediaries have sometimes raised the qualification approval rate to as much as four billion tomans; what will become of this eleventh parliament!!”
This is not the first time that Mr. Sadeghi has raised the issue of bribery for approving the qualifications of representatives. Last summer, he also posted a message on Twitter addressing Ahmad Jannati, the secretary of the Guardian Council, saying that corruption has infiltrated the apparatus under his management, and people affiliated with the Guardian Council have demanded money from candidates for approving their parliamentary candidacies.
Although Mr. Sadeghi’s claim initially faced a complaint from the Guardian Council, this member of Parliament brought his witnesses to a hearing on charges at a session of the Commission on the Oversight of the Conduct of Representatives, where they stated that people had demanded sums ranging from 100 million tomans to 2 billion tomans for approving their qualifications.
In a report published by some domestic Iranian media outlets last July, it was stated that according to one witness, he was invited to Sayed Azizollah Mosque in Tehran’s bazaar to discuss his qualification approval.
The raising of the issue of corruption by election overseers and the demand for money for approving candidate qualifications comes at a time when last summer two members appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei to the Guardian Council, Mohammad Yazdi and Sadegh Larijani, accused each other of corruption.
The United States has repeatedly condemned institutionalized financial corruption and the plundering of Iran’s natural resources by officials affiliated with the ruling regime in the country, considering them among the main factors in Iran’s economic and financial problems. Recently, for instance, Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, tweeted about officials of the Islamic Republic saying that instead of helping people, they have engaged in corruption.
The U.S. State Department also referred to the wealth of Iran’s rulers and corruption in the governmental apparatus of the Islamic Republic in a Twitter message on the occasion of International Anti-Corruption Day.
The eleventh parliamentary elections of the Islamic Consultative Assembly are scheduled to be held on February 21. Reports indicate widespread rejection of the qualifications of candidates from some political groups.
Source: Voice of America
