Iran's Parliament Unconvinced; Minister of Sports and Youth Receives Yellow Card

On Tuesday, October 7, Iranian parliament representatives were not convinced by the explanations of Mahmoud Goudarzi, the Minister of Sports and Youth, regarding "corruption and immorality in football, government interference in federations, and neglect of fundamental youth issues," and issued him a "yellow card." Among the questions posed by Ahmad Shohani, the representative from Ilam, were concerns about the increasing age of marriage and the rising number of divorces. Goudarzi responded by highlighting the ministry's efforts to encourage marriage, including producing artistic works, creating electronic books on marriage and divorce for officials, and drafting a marriage counseling protocol. Other aspects of Shohani's inquiry included "government interference in federations," "corruption and immorality in football," and "the lack of action against brokerage networks and yellow sports media." Goudarzi stated, "The statutes of sports federations grant the minister the authority to appoint and dismiss officials, which is his legal right, and we are allowed to intervene according to the law, except for the football federation." He added, "According to the law, the football federation and one or two others are directly under the supervision of the international federation, and we do not have the authority to intervene. If corruption occurs there, I have no legal rights." Ultimately, however, parliament representatives were not satisfied with the minister's explanations and, out of 194 votes, issued a yellow card to Mahmoud Goudarzi with 94 votes in favor, 76 against, and 12 abstentions. Following the yellow card, Shohani announced that a motion for the minister's impeachment had been submitted to the parliamentary board with 50 signatures. With this yellow card issued on Tuesday, the total number of yellow cards issued by parliament representatives to ministers in Hassan Rouhani's government reached 15. Previously, ministers of culture, interior, education, industry and mining, communications and information technology, labor and social welfare, and science had received yellow cards. Meanwhile, Ali Tayebnia, the Iranian Minister of Economy, has received three yellow cards from parliament, and the parliamentary board previously announced that he would be impeached according to parliamentary regulations. The Iranian parliamentary regulations state that if a minister receives three yellow cards, the path for their impeachment is opened. However, Tayebnia's impeachment has not yet been scheduled for parliamentary discussion. Hassan Rouhani and his cabinet members have repeatedly criticized what they claim is the excessive number of questions from parliament representatives directed at ministers. According to a report from the parliamentary oversight office, representatives posed 970 questions to ministers of Rouhani's government in the third year of the ninth parliament and issued 4,850 warnings to the president and ministers, with the Iranian president being the subject of the most warnings. Meanwhile, a motion for the impeachment of Abbas Akhoundi, the Minister of Roads and Urban Development, was announced in the public session of parliament on October 5.