Top Cleric Warns of Post-Election Unrest Despite Lack of Interest Among Electorate

Dubbed "layette-gate" in 2022, Ghalibaf was embroiled in controversy when his wife, daughter, and son-in-law returned from a trip to Turkey with substantial excess luggage, reportedly including items such as a baby bed and stroller readily available in Tehran.

Critics levied accusations of hypocrisy against Ghalibaf, pointing out discrepancies between his public rhetoric advocating support for domestic products and patience during the country's worst economic crisis while simultaneously allowing his family to travel abroad to purchase luxury goods.

As her father now vies for the presidency in the upcoming June 28 elections, on Tuesday, his daughter Maryam made a televised attempt to clear her family's name, but instead, the public's outrage against Ghalibaf only intensified.

She admitted to her trip to Turkey but vehemently denied the purpose, stating, "I did travel to Turkey, but not to buy layette." In a bid to clear her father's name, she said, "They were unable to criticize him directly, so they fabricated falsehoods about his family."

The saga in 2022 was worsened after the revelation of a video from the 2017 presidential debates showing Ghalibaf admonishing a former minister for traveling to Italy to purchase baby clothes, asserting bleakly, "You think our economy will improve, but it never will!"

Civil activist Vahid Ashtari, who initially disclosed details of the trip, responded to Ghalibaf's daughter's appeal on Wednesday by sharing airport documents purportedly indicating they were carrying 294 kilograms of luggage.

“Mr. Ghalibaf's daughter said on TV that she went to Turkey, but not for shopping. Here is the image from the Meraj Airlines system that I am sharing for the first time. They should clarify what these 294 kilograms of baggage registered under her husband’s name contained - 20 packages and luggage!” Ashtari wrote on X.

In the interview, Ghalibaf’s daughter also stated that those who fabricated lies about her had been punished. However, Ashtari shared a document purportedly indicating his acquittal in the "layette-gate" case.

Meanwhile, the IRGC-linked Tasnim News Agency attempted to vindicate Ghalibaf in response to Ashtari's tweet by posting an image, purportedly released by Meraj Airlines, "refuting false rumors about the weight of Ghalibaf's family luggage" and indicating potential "judicial action against these allegations."

The combined weight of the luggage depicted in Tasnim's image for the family amounts to approximately 130 kilograms, a detail that prompted some users to argue that it is still a substantial amount.

It is not the first time Ghalibaf's daughter has been at the center of scandal. In 2016, the Memari News website, owned by prominent whistleblower Yashar Soltani, reported that Lavizan Park in Tehran had been closed for several days for her wedding celebration while her father was mayor of Tehran.

Memari News detailed how the municipal forces of Tehran's fourth district were on alert for the wedding, utilizing municipal resources to illuminate Lavizan Forest Park at the cost of local authorities.

In Tuesday's television interview, Ghalibaf's daughter also denied the allegations as false, stating, "These lies ruined our wedding celebration."

In 2019, Soltani was imprisoned for exposing financial corruption within the Tehran Municipality during Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf's tenure and for revealing details about the wedding. Earlier this month, Soltani was rearrested for his reporting on corruption.

Back in 2022, a leaked audio file of IRGC commanders discussing extensive financial corruption involving Ghalibaf during his tenure as Tehran mayor also caused an uproar in Iran, reflecting the deep connections between the IRGC and the country's political echelons.

"Those advocating for the removal of internet filtering should recognize that such decisions are often determined in meetings where government consensus does not necessarily align with majority opinion," said Issa Zarepour, referring to the power security and intelligence organs wield in suppression of information.

He further elaborated, "When making such promises, it's crucial to ensure they can be fulfilled later on. In the previous administrations, filters were enforced on platforms like Viber, WeChat, Telegram, and Twitter. No one can claim they didn't enforce these measures during their tenure."

His refutation appears to address Mostafa Pourmohammadi's recent presidential campaign pledge to remove internet filtering.

"I aim to swiftly eliminate VPNs and filtering due to their adverse security implications and the costs imposed on our nation," Pour Mohammadi, a former justice minister, stated.

Over the past two decades, Iran has implemented extensive censorship measures, blocking tens of thousands of websites. With the rise of social media, platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have also been subject to restrictions. Traditional media, books, and films are similarly heavily censored and scrutinized for both adherence to Islamic beliefs and political content.

In circumventing website restrictions and evading filters, individuals utilize VPNs to gain unrestricted access to the Internet. In freer societies, VPNs are predominantly employed to safeguard user anonymity.

Drawing from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's earlier call for contenders to avoid "slander and refrain from smearing each other," Rouhani's office asserted that these actions have been directed towards him.

During debates, conservative candidates frequently criticized Rouhani's 'reformist' tenure, with Alireza Zakani, Tehran's Mayor and a presidential candidate, remarking, "Rouhani's eight-year tenure was a dark era that worsened the country's situation."

His letter, cited by Iranian media, criticized certain candidates for allegedly “flouting moral and legal standards”, urging the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) to “honor its commitment to provide equitable airtime”.

Hardliners have been accusing Rouhani for Iran's current economic crisis that worsened after the United States withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal six years ago and imposed economic sanctions.

The former president also lodged a complaint following the broadcast of the first debate on Monday.

After his initial complaint, IRIB urged Rouhani to clarify the precise nature of the allegations and specify when they were made during the debates. Despite this, his subsequent complaint, like the first, lacked specific details.

The announcement was made Thursday evening in a tweet by Mehdi Keshtdar, managing editor of the judiciary’s news agency (Mizan).

In a video clip tweeted a few hours before his arrest, Ashtari said he had not received any official summons to serve the sentence. Ashtari said in the video that he was in Qazvin but had been informed by colleagues and friends that security forces were looking for him to arrest him.

Ashtari is well known for his revelations of corruption against presidential candidate Qalibaf and his family and other officials.

The whistle-blower is a member of Edalat Khahan (Justice Seekers), a political group of mainly university students loyal to Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and close to former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili who is also running for presidency in the June 28 snap elections.

In April 2022, Ashtari’s revelations sparked the Layette-gate scandal that led to calls for Qalibaf’s resignation and resurfacing of other alleged corruption cases against his family.

Ashtari made his latest revelation about the case on Wednesday by releasing a document that proved Qalibaf’s daughter lied about the matter in an election-related interview with the state television Tuesday.

Earlier this month, the judiciary also arrested journalists and whistle-blowers Saba Azarpeik and Yashar Soltani, also known for their revelations against Qalibaf, to serve sentences not yet executed.

The turning point came Monday when former Foreign Minister Mohammad-Javad Javad Zarif made a bold entrance into the election scene alongside the pro-reform candidate Masoud Pezeshkian with a fiery speech at a televised roundtable discussion.

“The whole of Pezeshkian’s candidacy, even if he is not elected, was worth the few minutes that Zarif spoke to the people on TV. These words were anti-spell to the one-sided slanders of the extremists. The reign of lie will not last,” Mohammadreza Javadi Yeganeh, professor of sociology at Tehran University, tweeted after Zarif’s speech Monday.

Zarif who has always insisted that the 2015 JCPOA agreement with world powers was signed with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s full approval, defended the Rouhani administration and his own performance in crafting the deal and its immediate economic outcome.

He also showed a few graphs to prove the deal and the lifting of sanctions had helped Iran's economic growth in 2016 and 2017 and asserted that hardliners’ ability to sell more oil since 2021, in which they take huge pride, was solely due to US President Joe Biden loosening the sanctions.

Ultra-hardliner Saeed Jalili who is one of the top three contenders to the presidency said Tuesday in response to Zarif’s remarks, “Today I heard that [someone] has said it was Trump [who imposed sanctions on Iran] and that [Joe] Biden had a different approach. Why did you not continue [your talks with him] during the nine months of your time when Biden was [president]?”

In fact, The Rouhani administration did participate in in indirect talks with the United States from April to June 2021, but they did not reach an agreement before the end of his term and the election of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, who took office in August of that year.

“Biden not only did not remove Trump’s sanctions but also imposed tens of other sanctions,” Jalili added.

“Mr. Zarif's statements yesterday were wrong, and he was unfair. I will answer his insult tomorrow [in televised campaign programs],” ultra-hardliner candidate Alireza Zakani, who many believe is playing a supporting act to Jalili, said Tuesday.

Zarif has thrown all his weight behind Pezeshkian, a former lawmaker and health minister previously little known to many ordinary Iranians, particularly the younger generation, who may potentially cast their ballots for Pezeshkian if swayed to vote rather than boycott the elections.

The former foreign minister accompanied Pezeshkian Tuesday morning at a campaign trip to Isfahan, Iran's third-largest city and delivered a short speech at his campaign meeting in Tehran in the evening of the same day when he urged Iranians to vote for Pezeshkian. “Not voting is voting for the [hardliner] minority,” he said.

So far Pezeshkian has made no indication that he intends to propose Zarif as his foreign minister to the newly elected, hardliner-dominated parliament if he is voted president.

In a meeting on Wednesday with his former deputies and ministers, former President Hassan Rouhani also accused Jalili and the three other hardliner candidates, namely Zakani, Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, and Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh, of only believing in “war and confrontation”.

“They say we have no way other than fighting and confronting the world powers and defeating them and that [Iran] will never win in the United Nations and negotiations with big countries,” Rouhani, who was barred from running in the elections of the Expediency Council in March by the Guardian Council, said.

At an economic roundtable discussion Wednesday, conservative candidate Mostafa Pourmohammadi also touched upon the issue of the nuclear deal and sanctions. He said his government would complete the “unfinished” business of the JCPOA, which he describes as "not perfect" while accusing hardliners of sabotaging the talks.

“Pressures and damages [caused by sanctions] are serious and certain imprudent actions have increased the damages,” the conservative Pourmohammadi who insists he will negotiate even with the "bitterest enemy" said.