Could fraud allegations shatter Iranian parliament speaker's dream for presidency?

“He has to be constantly watched as he may commit some misconduct in any position he holds,” veteran conservative figure and current parliamentarian Mostafa Mir-Salim once said about Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, one of the most powerful politicians within the Islamic Republic’s ruling elites.

Earlier this month, Mir-Salim was back to haunt Ghalibaf, providing Iran’s judiciary with evidence implicating the parliament speaker in a massive bribery scheme that had been debated in 2017. Mir-Salim claimed that Ghalibaf had paid 650 billion Iranian rials (over $17 million if calculated on the market exchange rate of the period in question) to some lawmakers to drop an investigation into a separate multimillion-dollar property fraud case rooted in Ghalibaf’s 12-year tenure as the mayor of Tehran.

A probe into the scheme in 2017 could have shed light on multiple reports alleging that Ghalibaf and his close aides had sold 1.1 million square meters in land and other real estate properties to various buyers in exchange for whopping amounts. However, parliamentarians at the time chose to suspend the investigation, prompting an open “thank you letter” from Ghalibaf. Mir-Salim said Ghalibaf had launched an intense lobbying campaign to tilt the trajectory of events in his favor.

Ahmad Tavakkoli is a senior figure representing the traditional layer of the conservative camp, and is known for his vocal drive against corruption. As the founder and director of Transparency and Justice Watch — an Iran-based nongovernmental body committed to eradicating deep-rooted fraud —Tavakkoli has now publicly called on Mir-Salim to deliver any document in his possession pertaining to the parliament speaker’s alleged fraud. He has promised an independent examination of all the files based on the NGO’s charter and before informing the public about the conclusions.