The head of the Central Bank of Iran, Valiollah Seif, recently claimed that illegal stakeholders make it hard to reform Iran’s economy, but why is the Iranian Regime not attempting to push back against these corrupt networks?
Iran has been besieged by nationwide anti-regime protests that highlighted systematic corruption, amongst other things, as their problem with the Iranian Regime, and as such corruption became a talking point.
The Regime, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has made promises to fight corruption, but given that those in power are the ones involved in the corruption, these promises do not mean much. Even those who have gone on trial, the names of their accomplices have been treated as confidential and censored by the Regime, therefore giving corrupt officials immunity.
The Regime knows that corruption is one of the reasons that the people of Iran want regime change, with President Hassan Rouhani calling corruption a “national security threat”, so you might be hoping that something will change. After all, this corruption can be easily tracked, especially as the stakeholders have felt so immune to prosecution that they have openly bragged about it.
In fact, it seems as if the Regime is reluctant to do anything about the corruption. They pass laws to seem as if they will, but these are rarely enforced. Why would the Regime want to do something when they, their family members, and their supporters are all involved?
All the while that the Regime refuses to do something, it is the ordinary people of Iran who are losing out.
Some economists have offered suggestions of reforming administrative and governance structures in Iran, increased transparency, having the military relinquish their business holdings, and getting all three branches of government to work together, but this rather misses the point.
As Iranian economist suggested: “The core problem is that some of the above steps will have to be taken by the very corrupt elements that are well-positioned inside the power structure.”
He advises that an independent organization, headed by a powerful and clean politician and invulnerable to the other branches of power, would solve the problem, but even this misses the fact that the Regime does not have independent politicians. All members of the Regime are under the control of Khamenei and they will never be able to conduct a fair investigation.
Simply, the only way to ensure that the Iranian Regime is free of corruption is to change the regime and support democracy in Iran.
Source » ncr-iran