Reporting by PMOI/MEK
Iran, May 28, 2020—Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a former mayor of Tehran and a senior security official in the Iranian regime’s crackdown apparatus, was appointed as speaker of the mullahs’ Majlis (parliament) on Thursday, May 28. Ghalibaf has a long history in the regime’s security forces, warmongering and a known figure in massive theft and plundering of the people’s riches. His appointment as parliament speaker is further indication of how the regime intends to address future dilemmas.
Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had indicated on May 17 that he wishes for a “Hezbollahi” government in Iran. Fearing further protests and another nationwide uprising, Khamenei has long been disqualifying a long list of rival candidates for the regime’s parliament and holding a fully engineered parliamentary election to pave the path for such a parliament and government of his approval.
Ghalibaf has in the past boasted about killing members of the Iranian opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) and three years ago he acknowledged that “only four percent of the society are happy with the status quo,” according to a report wired by the state-run Tasnim news agency on April 15, 2017.
Since day one of the mullahs’ regime Ghalibaf has played a key role in the crackdown of social protests in Tehran, the oppression against locals in Kurdistan, and the 1980s Iran-Iraq war. Ghalibaf was also Tehran’s mayor for 12 years, during which he was involved massive theft and embezzlement cases worth billions of dollars.
Ghalibaf was the commander of the IRGC Air Force and yet he was heavily involved in the crackdown of the 1999 student uprising. In remarks during his campaign for the 2013 presidential race, Ghalibaf specifically said he was in the streets when the regime’s security forces were attacking the protesters during the 1999 uprising. Ghalibaf is also proud of always taking a stance against the MEK ever since 1980 and “being in the streets wielding sticks” to defend the regime whenever needed. Ghalibaf was appointed as the regime’s state police chief in 2000 and was active in launching various new units to ensure social crackdown.
From 2005 to 2017 Ghalibaf served the regime as mayor of Tehran and reports indicate billions of dollars went missing from the city treasury as a result of theft and embezzlement under his watch. The regime’s own state-run media cite documents indicating Tehran Municipality allocating large portions of land in northern Tehran, with 50-percent discounts, to municipal directors, City Council members, an MP, a state police official, and a number of other security officials, to name a few. This also included 200 apartments, villas and other sectors of land belonging to Tehran Municipality, all sold at hundreds of millions of dollars less than their actual values.
In 2019, state-run media outlets in Iran shed further light on Ghalibaf’s involvement in embezzlement. A few cases invlve “47 secret bank accounts,” a debt of over $10 million owed to Tehran’s municipality but not paid for by the regime’s judiciary, and tens of millions of dollars owed to the municipal by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).
Ghalibaf’s history sheds light into the path Khamenei has chosen for his regime’s future.
