Another Presidential Hopeful Promises to Fight Corruption and Nepotism

Parviz Fattah, the head of Bonyad-eh Mostazafan (The Foundation for the Oppressed and Veterans) and a likely candidate for the 2021 presidential election, has spoken out against rampant corruption in Iran, hinting that he will take measures to drive it out. 

In a recent broadcast, he attacked Iran’s political elite, and said the country was being badly damaged by years of entrenched corruption.

The comments were widely covered in the media. 

Appearing on a television program on Saturday, August 8, Fattah’s criticism targeted almost everyone who had been in a position of power over the last decade or more, from former president and one of the architects of the Islamic Republic, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, to Masoumeh Ebtekar, Gholam Ali Haddad Adel and Alireza Zakani. His accusations also extended to the army and the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

Several political analysts characterized Fattah’s comments as the launch of his presidential campaign. 

But in fact, this tactic has been deployed before. At the start of his own campaign for the presidency, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacked figures across the spectrum of Iran’s political arena, presenting himself as a strong independent candidate bringing a new kind of politics to the Islamic Republic. 

Fattah also included Ahmadinejad in his recent attacks, urging him to give up his 1,800-square-meter home in Velenjak —  which belongs to the Foundation for the Oppressed — and to move to the south of Tehran, where he should honor his own pledges and campaign slogans to serve the people of Iran. 

For the most part, Fattah’s accusations were not surprising. The exception to that was his mention of Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, the father-in-law of Mojtaba Khamenei and himself a potential candidate for the presidency. Haddad Adel played an important role in the 11th parliament, helping decide who would be eligible to run for them. Another target, Alireza Zakani is also thought to be planning to put himself forward as a candidate.

Amir Hossein Fattah revealed on Twitter that Haddad Adel does not pay rent for the building he uses to run the Farhang High School, and the building is owned by the Foundation for the Oppressed. His attacks on Haddad Adel were possibly not designed to do any harm to the school or Haddad Adel himself; it could have simply been an attempt to show that he was willing to cross red lines that other potential candidates would not dare cross.

"It is said that I am doing this for the sake of the 2021 election,” Fattah later said, dismissing rumors that he intended to run. “Let them say it. But also let them respectfully return our properties.”

"What are these comments for? If someone wants to run for the presidency, would he make such remarks to line up enemies in front of him, such important figures?"

What Support Does Fattah Have?

Parviz Fattah emerged as a potential candidate in the presidential election of 2017 too. However, as election season got underway, he stated that he appreciated the role the Supreme Leader had given him and that he would not run for president.   

Ebrahim Raeesi interpreted these comments as an indirect attack on him. He, like Fattah, had also been recently given an appointment by the Leader, but he chose to run for president.

If he does put himself forward, Fattah could do well. He is popular among conservative principlist groups and with supporters and allies of Ahmadinejad, and he, like the former president, is a member of the Urmia Circle. He also does not appear to have any serious opposition within the Revolutionary Guards. Presenting himself as an anti-corruption candidate will also gain him popularity.  

Ahmadinejad has also shown support for Fattah in the past, including telephoning him while en route to New York in 2009 to offer him a place in his next cabinet, though he refused.

Sadegh Mahsouli, one of the main financial sponsors of the Ahmadinejad movement in the last election, is also a friend of Parviz Fattah. Fattah also hopes to win the vote of Azerbaijani Turks, a section of the electorate that has played an important role in the last few elections and has sometimes helped produce surprising outcomes.

Fattah even has allies among some reformists within the government. When Fattah was named as a prospective Minister for Energy, a group of reformists including Javad Emam rallied people to get behind a vote of confidence for him in order to keep figures such as Morteza Saghaeiannejad out of the cabinet.

Unlike other ministers in Ahmadinejad's government, Fattah did not speak badly of the minister who had preceded him, instead stating that he had been handed a good ministry of energy. He also said in 2018 that Rouhani had been succcesful in fulfilling his campaign promise to "eradicate poverty.”

Before presiding over the Foundation for the Oppressed, Fattah was the chairman of the relief committee. Both institutions work with Iran’s poorest communities and so his experience there could in theory make him popular with the country’s less privileged people. A former Revolutionary Guards commander, he has worked for several of the Guards’ economic institutions. 

Fattah's LInks with Soleimani

Previous to his recent comments, Fattah also made headlines when he said he had asked Commander Ghasem Soleimani to pay the salaries of the Fatemiyoun Brigade forces, units of  Afghan soldiers tasked with operations in Syria. "I was in the Revolutionary Guards’ Cooperative Foundation,” he told a television program in April 2020. “Hajj Ghasem came to me and said he needed to pay the salaries of the Fatemiyoun Brigade and asked for help. It got to a point where Hajj Ghasem Soleimani could not pay the salaries of his army. He said, ‘these are our Afghan brothers and they have asked help from us.’"

Fattah could do well simply because of a lack of many serious rivals. Reformists' plans for the presidential election is still unclear, and other principlist candidates are not well known outside the institutions with which they are involved. However, Fattah's campaigning style has been described as unsophisticated. Yet if he avoids Ebrahim Raeesi’s 2017 strategy of trying to model himself after Ahmadinejad, he could enjoy more success. 

However, Fattah’s recent broadcast may not be linked to a presidential campaign. His comments could be motivated by a need to boost the Foundation of the Oppressed’s finances, hoping to regain some of its assets, including property, to avoid possible financial collapse, a prospect that many of Iran’s state institutions face in the current financial crisis. 

But what is clear is that Fattah’s comments were risky, not least because they draw attention to the corruption rife in his own institution. He doesn’t appear to be fearful of scrutiny however, and has attracted controversy for insisting that the Foundation for the Oppressed publish details about its properties online and even suggested it sell off some of them off. Meanwhile, the office of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad responded to Parviz Fattah's remarks by reminding him that, in 2017, Ahmadinejad had suggested to the Supreme Leader the foundation sell its properties and distribute the proceeds among the people.

Fattah's remarks have prompted fresh questions about the finances and operations of the Foundation for the Oppressed and other economic institutions under the control of the Supreme Leader. But despite an apparent scrutiny of some of the Islamic Republic’s most powerful institutions, politicians, clerics, and even ordinary people are well aware that this is all talk: none of these bodies face actual threats to their existence, or to the way they are run.