Managerial Discrimination and Representatives' Windfall Wealth

The head of the Article 90 Commission in the Sixth Parliament, while acknowledging the corruption of representatives, considers the system of discrimination in the country's management to be the cause, and says that when individuals enter the parliament with the approval of the Guardian Council, they no longer consider themselves accountable to the people.

The news of some MPs’ request to withdraw from impeaching a minister in exchange for an apartment has sparked a debate about blackmail and corruption in the House of Representatives. The news, which was spread by Abolfazl Aboutorabi, a member of the provincial parliamentary faction, was vehemently denied. The parliament’s presidium explained the incident by saying that two MPs had requested apartments from some ministers, but that the request had nothing to do with the impeachment debate.

The financial situation of members of parliament and their children, their favoritism and lobbying, is no secret. In this regard, the Khabar Online website reached out to two former members of parliament who were active in the Article 90 Commission, a commission whose duties include examining the workings of the parliament and handling violations and related complaints.

Both former representatives, while acknowledging the "blackmail and privilege-seeking" of representatives, have not limited this approach to the Tenth Parliament.

Hossein Ansarirad, a representative from Neyshabur and head of the Article 90 Commission in the sixth parliament, says that the windfall wealth of the representatives and their extortionate behavior when voting is the result of managerial discrimination in the country. This reformist figure says: “When the parliament is formed in this way based on the opinion of the Guardian Council, in such a way that some are eliminated and others come to the parliament with the Guardian Council’s understanding, we cannot expect more from it.”

Ansari Rad considers one example of MPs' concessions to be the admission by the son of a MP that he had four jobs: "Why does a MP who once had nothing suddenly become a billionaire? Those who spend billions of money to come to parliament should naturally expect many times that, and this is the principle of corruption."

Fazel Mousavi, a member of the Article 90 Commission in the Eighth Parliament, believes: “When someone becomes a representative who is not up to the standard of that seat, it is natural that they are tempted and move towards blackmail.” He says that many enter this field deliberately and use the position of representative illegally: “Unfortunately, there are not a few of them and their number is increasing day by day.”

Fazel Mousavi points to the stark difference in the financial status of some representatives at the beginning and end of their term, saying that not only the parliament, but many institutions in Iran are suffering from the disease of blackmail and rent-seeking.

Mahmoud Sadeghi, a reformist representative from Tehran, said in July 2018 that a number of parliamentarians had taken bribes during the review of the investigation plan from the Tehran Municipality: "One representative received a hologram of a change of use worth one billion tomans and a number of others received a five million tomans cash card."

Vali Dadashi, a representative from Astara and a member of the Article 90 Commission in the 10th Parliament, previously said: "Due to some lobbies and events that occur behind the scenes in the Parliament, the Parliament has also fallen from being at the forefront of affairs."

Mohammad Reza Najafi, a representative from Tehran, has also previously said that some representatives change their votes against their beliefs due to “individual or group interests” or in the name of “expediency testing.” He cited the reason for changing their votes as “the issuance of decrees outside the parliament.”

Fazel Mousavi, a former member of the Article 90 Commission, says: "A study was conducted on the ten parliamentary terms. As I was told, according to these studies, the least adherence to observing certain issues in these areas was among the representatives of the Tenth Parliament, and the highest adherence was in the First Parliament. That is, the further we get from the First Parliament, the less this adherence has become."

Source: DW