Who is Isa Sharifi 2
50 billion tomans spent on personal branding is Zakani’s only achievement
The news of the arrest of one of the legal directors of Tehran Municipality has strengthened the suspicion of the existence of a second Isa Sharifi during the conservative administration of Tehran Municipality. Although the news of Sharifi’s arrest, who was the right-hand man of Ghalibaf in Tehran Municipality, was kept secret for a long time and was even denied for a while, and his trial was held without media coverage, this time the conservative mayor himself has taken the lead and announced the arrest in the role of a hero fighting corruption. He stated yesterday that one of the legal department directors has been arrested by internal municipal bodies. This is a protective matter, and further explanation is not possible until its dimensions are clarified. We consider fighting corruption our duty and will do so in a way that practically restores people’s rights. Meanwhile, in July, Zakani defended the legal performance of Tehran Municipality in a television program, claiming that they had transformed the center and that a group of specialists concerned with public funds had become active in this organization.
The council’s voice has also risen
Observations suggest that the most significant performance or achievement of Zakani during his tenure in Behesht has been the time and money spent on personal branding and self-promotion, to the extent that the annual performance review session of the municipality did not even satisfy his fellow party members in the council, leading to sarcasm and irony. Some of his fellow party members in the council said that it seems Zakani has mistaken the performance presentation session for a mayoral election session. Jafar Tashakori Hashemi, head of the council’s Urban Development and Architecture Commission, with the irony that achieving the aspirations expressed by the Tehran mayor is very difficult, said that in the past 11 months, we have not seen any formal action from Tehran Municipality, and we should not make promises to people that will make us indebted in the future and that people will expect from us. Another council member, Nasser Amani, also said that Mr. Zakani speaks in today’s session as if it is a mayoral election session, but we should know that 11 months of municipal activity have passed, and we expected the mayor to present a report of these 11 months. It has been said that just the advertising for the 200-day performance report of the municipality has cost Tehran more than 50 billion tomans.
Mr. Camera
It is said that from the very first days of his presence in Tehran Municipality, Alireza Zakani had a microphone attached to the corner of his coat and several cameras accompanying him at every event. The peak of this was witnessed during the Damavand flood and his mud-covered presence at Emamzadeh Davood, which became the subject of much satire and criticism. From filling Tehran city’s advertising billboards with a 200-day performance report, which essentially consisted of presenting routine and ordinary municipal activities even from previous periods as his individual achievements. The advertisements included some routine and ordinary activities of Tehran Municipality, and some statistics were fundamentally false and incorrect, such as the creation of 32 fruit and vegetable markets in 200 days, which was never announced where in Tehran they were operational. Interestingly, the fencing around 27 parks in Tehran under the title of Mother and Child Parks and preventing men from entering these spaces, despite much criticism, has been recorded as one of Zakani’s performance achievements. At the same time, when he was promoting his actions with many advertisements on billboards in the eyes of Tehran citizens, social media users believed that the issue is that many of those things he is boasting about are not his work; they were done in the previous period, and the operations reached his term. Or it’s interesting that Tehran Municipality is advertising its duties with banners in our eyes.
Illegal appointment
The position of Tehran Municipality was so vital for Zakani that he gave up being in Parliament and heading the Research Center to sit in the position that Ghalibaf occupied for 12 years. Zakani’s presence as the head of Tehran Municipality was fraught with controversies from the start, from legal issues in his appointment to controversies about his son-in-law, daughter, and brother-in-law, and recently his showy presence in the Damavand flood has been heavily criticized. To take on the management position of Tehran Municipality, a minimum of managerial executive experience or related expertise is required in the individual’s resume, which Zakani lacked. The situation was so problematic that a conservative filed a complaint with the Administrative Justice Court against the Minister of Interior for endorsing Zakani’s appointment. Saleh Moftah pointed out the lack of executive management experience and the irrelevance of Zakani’s nuclear medicine degree with the necessary qualifications for urban management in his complaint, stating that the then Minister of Interior signed the municipal appointment without considering the criticisms and objections raised even from the conservative spectrum. Although ultimately, the Administrative Justice Organization defined the municipality as a private sector and did not consider entering this field as part of its duties.
Nepotism
But the first assist that Zakani gave in his role as Tehran Municipality manager was the appointment of his son-in-law as his advisor. The same son-in-law from whom he has a dual-nationality grandchild. Hossein Heidari is the husband of Maryam Zakani, and their child was born when Maryam Zakani was studying in Sweden. Zakani’s son-in-law, in collaboration with Rambod Javan, established the company Ideh Negar Arsh. As the criticism of this appointment intensified, Zakani was forced to back down and withdrew the appointment, but he tried to arrange a position for his other son-in-law’s brother by introducing him as the proposed Minister of Education to Raisi. However, even here, his attempt failed, and the nepotism in appointments became so problematic that Raisi did not accept this suggestion and ultimately appointed someone else instead.