In one of the most lackluster elections in Iran’s parliament (Majles), Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, former Chief of police and commander of the terrorist designated Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Air Force was re-elected as the speaker of parliament for the third time.
While he was elected twice with 230 votes out of 290 in the previous two years, he won the speakership with only 193 votes on Wednesday.
The highest number of votes ever won by a parliament (Majles) speaker in annual elections was 237 votes cast for former speaker Ali Larijani in 2016 and the lowest number was 140 votes cast in favor of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the second year of the first round of the parliament in Iran in 1980.
Many Iranian lawmakers and political observers had said during the past week that despite a scandal about Ghalibaf family’s luxury shopping trip to Turkey in April and his involvement in a major financial corruption case, he was poised to get re-elected. Several politicians had opined that the fate of this year’s election was going to be determined outside the Majles, meaning at Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office.
Following the election, members of the Majles rushed to a meeting with Khamenei, officially announced as an event on the liberation of Khorramshahr in 1982 during the 8-year war with Iraq.
Ironically, Khamenei was calling lawmakers revolutionary when the public, several lawmakers, and even the strictly controlled Iranian media were discussing Ghalibaf family’s shopping scandal.
Khamenei, clearly feeling the mood in the country amid economic crisis tried to defend his ‘revolutionary’ agenda. “The slogans of the Revolution are beneficial to the country, despite what some profess that the Islamic Revolution creates problems for Iran. No, it is the other way around. The Revolution and paying attention to these ideals are cures for the country’s sufferings.”