And it’s not just “the people vs. the Ayatollahs.” At its heart, the incipient revolution is about how corruption, rent-seeking, and nepotism has destroyed the Iranian economy.
A class of elites has grown around the state: the Revolutionary Guards’ business empire, clerical networks, quasi-state foundations (bonyads), and regime-connected technocrats. Iranians are not blind to how these insiders have captured assets and opportunities at the expense of everyone else.
Mahtab Divsalar, OCCRP’s senior editor on Iran, managed to reach several protesters by phone. “I asked them, specifically, why are you out there?” she says.
“It’s the high prices, the mismanagement, and the incompetence. And that the wealth of the country is only in the hands of this small group of people.”
Divsalar points to privatization as a case study. In practice, she says, it means handing assets like auto manufacturers, petrochemical plants, and even insurance companies to “semi-state entities, the cronies and their families, rather than the genuine private sector.”
Nepotism then extends the injustice, with aghazadeh — the children of powerful officials — winning contracts, loans, and jobs without merit. The lucrative business of evading sanctions also creates channels for illicit fortunes.
In that frame, corruption — and not geopolitical questions or even religious freedom — is the Iranian people’s central grievance.
