Iranian hardline conservatives, although not a majority in the legislature, nevertheless are unafraid to accuse anyone crossing them of incompetence in their quest for power, as sometimes the moderate conservatives will join them to make a majority. Their tool of choice: impeachment, which apparently is not unusual. Last year TIME reported on the loss of the Science Minister:
In what amounts to a major blow against the moderate president Hassan Rouhani by hardliners in Iran, the Science and Research Minister Reza Faraji-Dana was impeached on Aug. 20 by the Iranian parliament. The impeachment, which followed months of intense lobbying to prevent it by conservatives and reformists alike, has dealt a major setback to the implementation of Rouhani’s campaign promises of a more tolerant policy in Iran’s universities. …
“Faraji-Dana was one of the president’s main ministers,” says Saeed Laylaz, a political analyst in Tehran “He had been tasked with one of the most important assignments in internal politics, but the president’s success in economics and the nuclear talks caused his political opponents to react by impeaching one of his most competent ministers.”
The Iran Project has several articles on this ouster here. AL Monitor‘s Ali Afshari gave the explicit reasons for Faraji-Dana’s ouster, and in this 2014 article summarizes the future:
Faraji-Dana’s impeachment was a warning sign to the moderate administration that the rival group has recovered from its loss in last year’s presidential elections. Rouhani, Vice President for Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Majid Ansari, as well as his media team, were weak in their defense of Faraji-Dana. Rouhani’s rivals are determined to defeat him and make his supporters lose faith in him. If Rouhani cannot find a way to stop them, then his other ministers, who have already received yellow cards, will be impeached as well.
Adnan Tabatabai at Muftah suggests this is all about the raucous 2009 elections:
Most significantly, Faraji-Dana brought back to the universities “starred” students and professors who were expelled because of views expressed during and after the highly-contested 2009 presidential election—indeed, the core issue around which the impeachment process culminated.
Over the past five years, the 2009 post-electoral crisis has morphed into a latent, if not chronic, factional conflict; a ghost that haunts everyday politics.
Meanwhile, in multiple speeches, high-ranking officials including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself have maintained that the “sedition”—the official term describing the 2009 unrest and those supportive of the Green Movement—has ended and those “anti-revolutionary” elements have been crushed. The “political epic” (hamaase-ye siaasi) of the 2013 presidential election that won Rouhani the presidency have served as further evidence that the “sedition” had been overcome. …
Faraji-Dana’s impeachment demonstrates that, for a considerable number of conservative parliamentarians, anxiety over the 2009 unrest is still the determining criteria used to assess the eligibility, integrity, and suitability of Iranian officials.
Suggesting the conservatives are rattled when they discover the students are no longer with them, but would prefer a more open society. Much like today’s GOP. IranPolitik opined about a great divide:
The impeachment vote was not the result of the intransigency of the more hardline PFIR faction or an alliance between it and the Principlist faction alone. The numbers appear to indicate that moderate conservatives from Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani’s Followers of the Leadership faction must have joined the hardline factions to give the vote of no confidence its slim majority. This episode highlights the “great divide” in Iranian politics. On one hand, an elite consensus exists within the regime on the need to moderate certain elements of Iranian foreign policy, especially as it relates to nuclear negotiations with the West, for the time being. On the other hand, at best no consensus exists on whether or not to reform the conservative social,political, and cultural policies in place, and at worst a slim reverse consensus exists to block reforms.
Now Middle East Eye reports on the recent attempted ouster of the Education Minister:
Critics had accused Education Minister Ali Asghar Fani, part of Iran’s moderate camp, of failing to address complaints from teachers over low salaries.
But the impeachment effort, led by ultra-conservatives, was seen as an attack on the Rouhani’s government.
The impeachment motion was rejected by 167 lawmakers in the 290-seat parliament, with 76 voting in favour.
It had been expected to fail after the majority group in parliament, the moderate conservative “Followers of the Leader” faction, had assured the minister of its support.
A member of the faction, Behrouz Nemati, denounced the motion as “partisan hostage-taking by anti-government lawmakers”. …
The next one on the block is the Economy Minister, reports the Tehran Times in a report dated August 10th of this year:
Iranian Minister of Economy Ali Tayyebnia faces impeachment as he failed to convince Iranian members of the Parliament during a questioning session on Sunday.
This was the third time Tayyebnia was put to questioning by the MPs and failed at providing satisfactory explanations, Nasim news agency reported.
According to Iranian law, failing three times to provide convincing answers to lawmakers paves the way for impeachment.
During an open session of the Majlis (parliament), Tayyebnia faced two questions by MP Mehrdad Bazrpash. The questions were about a banking law and a tax report.
As the MP was not convinced with Tayyebnia’s answers, he asked other lawmakers to cast votes to show whether they were convinced with the answers.
80 MPs voted for the minister while 105 MPs voted against him and 10 others abstained.
While impeachment is a word with strong emotional connotations in the USA, in Iran it’s a more normal maneuver – President Ahmadinejad, President Rouhani‘s predecessor, lost at least 9 of his 21 ministers (when Ali Kordan was successfully impeached). However, while (to make an example of him) Kordan was reportedly impeached for fabricating his educational background (“… after it came to light that a doctoral degree allegedly awarded to Ali Kordan was fabricated, and that the putative issuer of the degree, Oxford University, had no record of Kordan receiving any degree from the University.”), it is not clear that Rouhani’s ministers are being impeached for anything other than being active members of the Reformist camp.
