Rouhani’s economy minister impeached
Just one year into his second term, Hassan Rouhani’s economic team has come under fire with two ministers impeached in one month.
With the value of the national currency dropping and the economic situation worsening, Iran’s parliament has impeached the second minister this month. Masoud Karbasian was impeached Aug. 26 with 137 votes in favor and 121 against after serving just one year as minister of economic affairs and finance.
The impeachment is another blow to the Hassan Rouhani government, which is struggling to respond to US President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the nuclear deal and reapply sanctions against Iran. Earlier in the month on Aug. 8, Iran’s Labor Minister Ali Rabiei was also impeached.
“The Rouhani administration’s economy is ill, and the blame is with Karbasian,” Iranian parliamentarian Jalil Rahimi Jahan-Abadi said on the parliament floor. He added, “Karbasian is not a manager who understands the economy at large or knows how to run it.” Other parliamentarians who voted in favor of the impeachment cited a number of other economic issues including inflation, transparency on economic decision-making, not supporting domestic production, uneven tax application that adversely impacted poorer classes, and a lack of adequate management on the issues of investment, tariffs and insurance.
In his own defense, Karbasian was defiant of his economic performance as the economy minister. “Some of the economic problems that came about were external and not under the control of the administration,” he said. “Some other economic problems were not due to structural problems but the broken oaths of the dominant powers.” The reference to “dominant powers” is the US decision to pull out of the nuclear deal, reapplying US sanctions, and causing European firms to either pull their investments out of Iran or not go through with new investments.
