Political Corruption Added to Administration’s Economic Charges

While “economic corruption” cases relating to several officials in the Ahmadinejad administration are under investigation by the judiciary, some prominent Principalist lawmakers in the eighth Majlis, including Ahmad Tavakkoli, warned about the increasing “political corruption” in the administration and bureaucratic state, characterizing it as “much worse than economic corruption.”

Ahmad Tavakkoli, who heads the Majlis Strategic Research Center, said in his latest remarks, “We have reached a state where political corruption is rampant, with some even trying to influence decision makers through bribes.  This kind of corruption is much worse than economic corruption, because in economic corruption individuals pursue base and materialistic interest, but in political corruption it is possible that legal decisions would be made to facilitate certain people’s corrupt pursuits and lead to the interference of some in distributing the enormous oil proceeds.”

Discussing “political corruption,” he said, “political corruption is the involvement of politicians in economic corruption, whereby they buy and sell laws and regulations.  This is a much more important disease that some are afflicted with now by trying to infiltrate the Majlis using bribes, threats or promises.  Unfortunately we don’t have comprehensive laws dealing with political corruption.”  

The head of the Majlis Strategic Research Center explained, “If this problem is not dealt with today, tomorrow would be very late.  The judiciary is now facing a difficult test, because it has moved forward to investigate two important cases.  One deals with an administration official and the other with a relative of a senior regime official.  If the judiciary falls short of dealing with either case, in my opinion it would flunk the public opinion test and won’t have any standing left for combating corruption.”

This prominent Principalist lawmaker added, “People who are themselves accused of corruption shouldn’t be in charge of combating economic corruption; because if the accusations are true the result is what the supreme leader declared, that you can’t clean glass with a dirty towel.”

Ahmad Tavakkoli’s was referring to Mohammadreza Rahimi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vice president, who represents the administration in the anti-economic corruption taskforce, despite being under investigation by the judiciary in an economic corruption case.

The debate ever “political corruption” and “economic corruption” is heating up in the country after the judiciary failed to make a conclusion on the mentioned cases two days ago.  One Principalist lawmaker, Ali Motahari, went as far as declaring, “In our country the judiciary does not have enough independence.”  

Ali Motahari said, “When an economic corruption case is opened, some people are arrested and admit to many things during interrogation, when the case is linked to a high-ranking government officials.  Then everyone is seeking permission from senior officials to pursue charges against the government official, which is a perverse scheme.”