July 5, 2024
The Majlis has surprisingly easily re-elected Mohammad-Baqer Qalbaf as its speaker, avoiding an anticipated shoot-out among several conservative lawmakers. The election of Majlis speaker took place just days before President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash and before Qalibaf himself ran for president, doing very badly with the voting public.
Whether Qalibaf would have faced more opposition for the speakership had his unpopularity with the general public been known remains an unknown. Qalibaf was opposed by one candidate to his right and one to his left, but emerged with the support of just over two-thirds of the Majlis deputies, firmly quashing speculation that he was opposed by a huge proportion of the deputies.
With 287 of the 290 deputies present, 198 backed Qalibaf to retain the position he first took in 2021. He initially became speaker following a string of failed presidential bids and 12 years as mayor of the capital. His 68 percent support from the newly-elected deputies was a dramatic and convincing victory. It was also surprising, given the numerous corruption allegations that have tracked him for years and are believed to have sapped his appeal to a general public that appears more concerned about corruption with every passing day.
Politically, Qalibaf is widely perceived as a moderate conservative, even a pragmatist, rather than an ideologue. Many, however, remember Qalibaf for his support, as a Pasdar general, for a violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999. He also reportedly ordered live gunfire to be used against Iranian students in 2003 while serving as the country’s police chief.
In the May 28 Majlis vote, he was challenged from the right only by Mojtaba Zonouri, a hardline Shiite cleric who once chaired the Majlis National Security Committee. Zonouri drew only 60 votes or 21 percent of the Majlis membership, seemingly a measure of the limits of the firmly anti-Qalibaf membership of the legislature. From the left, Qalibaf was challenged by Manouchehr Mottaki, a new member of the Majlis and foreign minister under President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. Mottaki received five votes, a pitiful 2 percent of the membership. Despite his ties to Ahmadi-nejad, Mottaki was never a fire-eater and has been perceived as a relatively moderate conservative. The remaining 24 deputies cast blank or invalidated ballots.
The Peydari faction within the Majlis has led the opposition to Qalibaf. It was widely assumed to have the support of at least 100 deputies in the newly elected Majlis with a multitude of others who don’t like Qalibaf expected to join in opposing him. That proved to be far off the mark. It would appear that many deputies view themselves as independents, even if they were endorsed by Peydari in the elections, and preferred to see Qalibaf in the speaker’s chair rather than some ideologue. One reason Qalibaf was viewed as weaker in this new Majlis was because of his poor showing in the March elections.
Four years ago, he ran from Tehran and came in first with 1.2 million votes. This year, he again ran from Tehran but came in fourth with just 448,000 votes. In his acceptance speech, Qalibaf called on lawmakers to find a way to address their constituents’ demands. “In order to create hope in the people, we must reach a common understanding and act in a converging and empathetic way, and we must agree on prioritizing the solution of the people’s problems, regardless of our political inclinations and tastes,” he said. A trained pilot, Qalibaf served in the Pasdaran all through the 1980s’ war with Iraq.
After the conflict, he served as the head of the Pasdar construction arm, Khatam ol-Anbia, leading efforts to rebuild. Qalibaf then served as the head of the Pasdaran’s air force, where in 1999 he co-signed a letter to reformist President Mohammad Khatami amid student protests in Tehran over the government closing a Reformist newspaper. The letter warned Khatami the Pasdaran would take action unilaterally unless he agreed to put down the demonstrations. Qalibaf then served as the head of Iran’s national police force.
However, a leaked recording of a meeting between police chief Qalibaf and members of the Basij force showed him boasting he ordered gunfire be used against demonstrators in 2003, as well as praising the violence used to suppress the 2009 Green Movement protests. Qalibaf ran failed presidential campaigns in 2005, when he lost to Ahmadi-nejad, 2013, when he lost to Hassan Rohani, and 2017, when he withdrew in support of Ebrahim Raisi, who went on to lose that year to Rohani.
The deputies also elected two deputy speakers Hamid Reza Hajbabai with 175 votes and Ali Nikzad with 169 votes. Nikzad was a deputy speaker in the last term of the Majlis and was a cabinet minister throughout Ahmadi-nejad’s two terms as president. Hajbabai was minister of education during both terms of Ahmadi-nejad and otherwise has been a member of the Majlis from Hamadan since 1996. Both are laymen.