Controversies surrounding the impeachment of Fatemi Amin continue – Part 1

The controversy surrounding the impeachment of Fatemi Amin continues – Part 1

The controversy surrounding the impeachment of Seyed Reza Fatemi Amin from the position of Minister of Industry and Mines by the 11th Parliament, which no one expected to become a serious crisis between the Ibrahim Raisi government and the revolutionary parliament, has escalated over the past two weeks. This dispute, which seemed unexpected and unimaginable in 2021, has now turned into one of the ongoing political and economic crises of the country.

It has been about two weeks since Ahmad Alireza Bigi, the representative of Tabriz in the revolutionary parliament, raised the issue of 75 parliament members receiving SUVs from the Ministry of Industry and Mines. As reported in the newspapers, Alireza Bigi claims that these 75 vehicles were given to the representatives in exchange for withdrawing their signatures from the motion to impeach the Minister of Industry and Mines. Regardless, he made this revelation and Fatemi Amin was impeached, but the story doesn’t end here, and the controversies continue.

The parliament has thrown the blame on Raisi.

According to the news published in the media the night before Fatemi Amin’s impeachment, it was not expected that Ibrahim Raisi, the Minister, would accompany him on the eve of his impeachment. The protest of pro-impeachment representatives at the beginning of the session also confirms the accuracy of this news. Observers believe that the 13th Prime Minister was so confident in obtaining the vote of confidence for his minister from the Revolutionary Parliament that he did not even bother to attend the session. However, it seems that things have taken a turn since 10 am on Monday, and the lobbies of the members of the Stability Front in the parliament, as well as other supporters of the government, have yielded the opposite result.

Therefore, despite Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s attempt to justify Raisi’s absence by referring to the parliamentary regulations, suddenly the President enters the parliamentary chamber in a disheveled manner. Of course, Raisi’s presence in the parliament was less than an hour, and he only gave a half-hour speech and defended his minister. But the problem starts when, contrary to Raisi’s expectations, he also fails to convince the representatives with his white beard, and they vote heavily in favor of Fatemi Amin’s impeachment. This is happening while the accompanying delegation of the Minister of Justice has included four ministers in an unprecedented manner, and even the First Deputy of the Prime Minister has accompanied him.

This means that the parliament, fully aware of the situation, voted to impeach the minister, even though the government had fully supported their popular member, Ibrahim Raisi, in the cabinet. The representatives knew well that this action could provoke a confrontation with the government, but they still voted, which could be seen as throwing Raisi under the bus, as they themselves had invited him to run for the presidency.

Raisi becomes angry.

The arguments that took place in the open session of the parliament on the tenth day of Ordibehesht 1402 (April 30, 2023) angered Ibrahim Raisi, and we have seen the consequences of it in recent days. Reports obtained by IranGate indicate Raisi’s strong reaction to the news of the decisive vote by the representatives in favor of impeaching his beloved minister. He, who was already very angry during the pre-vote speeches of the impeachment supporters, orders a report on the case of receiving 147 cars by the representatives and staff of the parliament to be prepared by the special inspection and immediately published.

This command by the Prime Minister leads to the publication of a report that confirms the main subject of receiving cars by the Revolutionary Parliament representatives. However, the issue here is that the special inspector’s report, appointed by the President, does not mention even the slightest hint that Fatemi Amin, as the former Minister of Silence, was aware of this incident. This means that the government has claimed that the representatives have taken back cars with the aim of retrieving their signatures from the impeachment motion of a minister, which the minister himself had no knowledge of.

In any case, the government’s reaction to Fatemi Amin’s impeachment was so severe that a large number of 11th Parliament representatives have made strong statements in recent days, ranging from Mojtaba Tavangar, a representative close to the Stability Front, to Ehsan Erkani, a representative from Neyshabur, and also Ahmad Alireza Bigi, who made controversial statements accusing the government of abusing its resources. The second part of this case discusses the reactions of the representatives and the outlook on these conflicts.