Four Challenges Facing Khamenei in Addressing Corruption

The leader of the Islamic Republic, following extensive media coverage of the role of dirty money in elections (after the issue was raised by the Minister of Interior), once again attempted to close the discussion on corruption in the country. He told a group of workers: "Saying 'thief' to a thief does not stop them from stealing; they must be stopped... Officials of the country are not newspapers that constantly talk about corruption; they must take action and truly stop corruption." (Kayhan, April 29, 2015) The last time he called for the cessation of discussions about corruption was in relation to the 3000 billion tomans embezzlement case. He had said regarding this matter, "Of course, it was reported. The press did some work. Reporting is not an issue, but the matter should not be dragged out." (October 3, 2011) Both officials and non-state media know that if they do not comply with his demands, they will face costs such as dismissal or suspension. The Minister of Interior in Rouhani's government had received a message from Khamenei's office prior to these recent remarks and retracted his statement. Why does Khamenei not want the issue of corruption to become the headline in the media, either in reports or through officials? Do not the majority of the Iranian people know how corrupt their officials are or how they abuse power? Are not some of these officials the ones who have repeatedly stated that corruption in Iran is systematic and institutionalized? By outlining Khamenei's four challenges in dealing with corruption in the Islamic Republic, I attempt to answer the above questions. He cannot deny it. Khamenei's propaganda policy and the media under his supervision portray a black image of Western countries and a white image domestically. However, corruption is a subject he cannot deny, and whitewashing his government incurs serious damage. Khamenei is not worried about news of corruption reaching those who have bid farewell to state and semi-state media and obtain their news and information from independent sources. He is concerned about those who are still loyal to the regime and do not expose themselves to Persian-language media outside the regime's control. He wants these individuals not to be exposed to the very dark and ugly points of the government. For this reason, there has been a crackdown on media that have pursued corruption in specific areas. Loyalists to the regime either do not know the extent and depth of corruption in the country, or they know and consider it normal like in other countries, or they simply do not want to know. Another problem for Khamenei is that while he advises officials and media not to speak or inform about corruption, he has no hope for the three branches of government to pursue and reduce corruption in the country: "A few years ago, I wrote a letter to the heads of the branches regarding the fight against economic corruption. They repeatedly say economic corruption exists, but this issue cannot be resolved merely by words; it requires practical action. What has been done in practice? What have you done in practice?" (February 17, 2013) Khamenei's question is of a rhetorical nature, meaning that corruption is not pursued in the Islamic Republic and apparently is unpursuable. He is aware of its destructive impact on the regime. Khamenei knows that corruption is gnawing away at the foundations of the regime's legitimacy for its insiders. For this reason, he has lost hope in promotional actions regarding this matter: "What miracle is this seminar [National Conference on Improving the Health of the Administrative System and Combating Corruption] and similar ones supposed to achieve? Is the situation not clear to you officials of the three branches? Given the favorable and hopeful conditions in terms of solidarity, coordination, and mutual understanding among the responsible officials, why are decisive and fundamental actions not being taken so that everyone can see the results tangibly?" (December 8, 2014) He demands action from those whose loyalty to the government is based on having a free hand to abuse power and lack of transparency. Khamenei, on the one hand, must defend his corrupt appointees and their corrupt associates or abandon some of them, but on the other hand, he is forced to absolve himself of corruption with statements like the above. The relationship between loyalists who can be relied upon by the regime and its leadership is based on a mutual exchange: unconditional defense of the regime in exchange for the regime's unconditional defense of them. Khamenei is well aware that today’s managers and officials of the regime—unlike in 1979 and the revolutionary atmosphere of that day—want the current situation because of the possibility of corruption and abuse of power, and without corruption, the continuation of the Islamic Republic is impossible. For this reason, over the past three decades, he has emphasized the consolidation of supervisory oversight, selections, illegal scholarships, rents, and privileges in the military and religious bureaucracy to ensure that power, wealth, and status in the country are held by insiders. Corruption has become an inseparable part and one of the factors for the regime's survival due to four of Khamenei's policies: 1) The division of people into insiders and outsiders, which is the foundation and basis of discrimination and corruption; insiders receive tens of millions of dollars annually for film production while outsiders are deprived of making films or have their films confiscated; insiders receive permits for profitable activities while outsiders must struggle for survival; insiders have access to the leadership's office in every profession and have obstacles removed from their paths, while outsiders become desperate and sometimes set themselves on fire out of despair. Of course, Khamenei wants insiders to be wealthy but not to show this wealth. His criticism of luxury cars (after the accident involving the grandson of former Guardian Council member Rabbani, who was killed) reveals this regime problem; 2) Disruption of the free flow of information through censorship and confiscation, jamming, and filtering; without free media, there is no possibility of raising issues of abuse of power in the public domain to oversee the work of officials; 3) Allowing the coercive forces (the IRGC, security, and police forces) to intervene in economic affairs, which threaten competitors and seize the country's resources; the repression machine needs rewards, and this reward could only be achieved by corrupting the coercive forces; 4) The unaccountability of the two economic empires of the leadership and the IRGC. The parliament in Iran can only supervise the income and expenditure of the government's economic empire (state-owned companies), but the other two empires can do whatever they want because they are in the leadership's backyard, and no one should know about them or question them. The two economic empires of the leadership and the IRGC, controlling thousands of companies and factories and annual financial transactions worth tens of thousands of billion tomans, do not even publish a single financial statement for public information. Fighting corruption in Iran means abandoning the above four policies, which also means the end of the method of governance in the Islamic Republic. Those who speak of the systematic and institutionalized nature of corruption within the regime (like Ahmad Tavakoli, a member of parliament, March 10, 2015) do not realize that the essence of their statements in fighting corruption necessitates the overthrow of the government.