On July 17, lawmakers re-elected Nasrollah Pejmanfar, a die-hard Paydari member, as chairman of the high-profile Article 90 committee. This will give Paydari more leverage against Ghalibaf and his allies in the parliament.

The rivalry between Ghalibaf and Paydari members dates to the 2013 presidential elections in which both Ghalibaf and the Paydari-backed former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili ran against moderate conservative Hassan Rouhani who won with reformists’ support.

Ultra-conservatives whose domain of influence in the Islamic Republic’s power structures is consistently growing, dealt a heavy blow on Ghalibaf in April by leaking a video of his family members returning to Iran from a shopping trip to Turkey with massive luggage that included a layette set for his unborn grandchild.

The video leaked on social media by a well-known hardliner activist, Vahid Ashtari, was followed by a barrage of criticism and resurfacing of other alleged corruption cases against the family, which prompted calls for his resignation.

The scandal got worse as the whistle blower claimed that during the trip, Ghalibaf’s wife had bought two apartments in Istanbul worth $1.6 million.

Source: Iran International