The Fall of Parliament with These Representatives
The Fall of Parliament with These Representatives
For a long time, we have been accustomed to hearing strange and bizarre news in the political scene of Iran. Just as we begin to normalize an event, the wheel of politics turns and unveils a new trick.
The news that was published yesterday is one of these unexpected anomalies that we must probably get used to as well.
The news is that Meysam Zahourian, the representative of Mashhad, wrote in a letter to Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of Parliament, that one of the problems that has frequently occurred in the open sessions of Parliament is that after representatives register their votes on bills and plans, some colleagues, jokingly or for any other reason, change the vote without the voter’s knowledge and press the voting button contrary to the representative’s initial opinion.
Zahourian, in his letter, has asked Ghalibaf to address this issue in the Parliament session and to find a solution with the help of the Parliament’s IT department.
At first glance, such an incident is surprising and astonishing. Why and how representatives allow themselves, as the Mashhad representative said, to change each other’s votes jokingly is truly an event that doesn’t even fit in comedy and fantasy films, and as far as we know, it has never happened in any parliamentary term.
Of course, there have been representatives whose speeches, warnings, or behaviors provoked laughter and ridicule from the audience and even reactions from their colleagues in Parliament. For example, in a part of the documentary film ‘Anti-Hero,’ which is currently being shown at the Cinema Verite Festival and reviews the political life of Sadegh Khalkhali, some of his behaviors and speeches during his parliamentary term are displayed.
A part of the film shows Khalkhali in the first Parliament, apparently in the first session chaired by the senior Yadollah Sahabi, going to the podium to respond to a representative.
Here, Khalkhali, in response to Sahabi’s warning, who asks him to speak for two minutes, says if you had let me answer right there, I would have spoken for two minutes, but now it can’t be less than 10 minutes. Or in another scene, Khalkhali wants to give a warning, and Hashemi Rafsanjani tells him to speak from his place and seat, but Khalkhali says it’s cramped here, and I’m fat and out of breath, and without the Speaker’s permission, he goes to the podium and speaks.
Khalkhali’s behaviors, according to Nategh Nouri, who was the Minister of the Interior in the third Parliament, were so inappropriate that he once had a verbal confrontation with him, and as Nategh himself says in the film, he told Khalkhali, ‘You have neither religion nor sense.’ Nevertheless, inappropriate behaviors and speeches of some representatives in parliamentary terms were more of a personal issue and were not in themselves a sign of the decline of the parliament’s status because, after all, the parliament, as it is officially called in some countries, is an institution representing the public. It is natural that in some cities or parts of the population, representatives are chosen and preferred who have populist behaviors and speeches and, as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, are of the people’s kind.
The natural result of such choices is the presence of figures in Parliament who are the true representatives of the majority of voters, but sometimes lack the principles or character expected from a political elite. Such choices are not unique to Iran or countries with lower levels of political development, as Donald Trump, with his unconventional personality and sometimes rude speeches and behaviors, managed to become the president of the world’s greatest power twice.
Even the recent case, which provoked the reaction of the Mashhad representative and led him to appeal to the Speaker of Parliament, can be analyzed at an individual and personal behavioral level, which, although very far-fetched and extraordinary, can be interpreted as a form of misconduct or childish behavior similar to schoolchildren, where the class monitor or the school principal should intervene, twist their ears, and discipline them with a stick. In this perspective and level of analysis, the behavior of the representatives is inappropriate because it lowers the level of the Parliament and reduces it from a political institution to a place for play and jokes. The Mashhad representative probably has such a concern that he decided to take up the pen and submit a written complaint to the Speaker of Parliament.
But is the real issue and the degradation of Parliament’s dignity these childish jokes, or is the issue of Parliament and the reduction of its dignity and status, both in the eyes of rulers and the political structure and citizens and the social base, much more serious and deep-rooted than such behaviors diminishing its dignity and status? It seems that Parliament has been facing much more serious and fundamental jokes than these childish games for years, which have distanced it from the position of affairs that the founder of the Islamic Republic spoke of.
These serious jokes are a set of processes that have reduced most of the Parliament’s representatives, especially in Tehran and metropolises, to individuals with less than 10% and even 5% of eligible votes in their constituencies. Processes in which a person, to gain qualification and approval and participate in the election field, must obtain the trust and positive opinion of numerous institutions, from local investigations to security institutions and executive and supervisory boards. And when they enter Parliament, they must come and go so quietly and take such harmless and mild positions that they don’t rub any person or institution the wrong way, because at any moment, a report might be made about them, and their qualification for the next term’s elections might be taken away.
It is obvious that a Parliament composed of such representatives is neither taken seriously by voters nor considered more than a joke and a playground in power relations, and at most, it is a means for extorting concessions from a certain minister or governor or government official. The crisis of legitimacy and the level of representation of Parliament naturally affects its function and output as well, and instead of being an institution representing the people, it sometimes turns into an anti-people institution. In fact, here we are faced with a philosophical joke that challenges the philosophy of parliamentarism. Two controversial bills of the eleventh Parliament, immunity with the aim of further depriving the right to freedom of publishing and transferring information to citizens, and hijab with the aim of further depriving the right to freedom of dress and lifestyle to citizens, are clear symbols of this philosophical joke with Parliament.
The recent joke, however, like some cartoons, is not funny and mocking but is an example of black humor. Humor in which the institution claiming to represent the people becomes so dysfunctional and inverted that the people, out of fear of its outputs, seek refuge in institutions known and famous for restriction and securitization.
In fact, the terrifying joke with Parliament is that to prevent the promulgation and implementation of its laws, one must take refuge in the Supreme National Security Council, not a few novice representatives who start joking and playing over each other’s votes. A Parliament whose philosophy is caught in a joke is better off being occupied with these childish games, as its harm is less, just as Saadi, may he rest in peace, considered the midday sleep of a tyrant better than his wakefulness.