A prominent conservative newspaper editor and politician argues that Iran is grappling with a governance crisis, yet desperate pleas are falling on deaf ears.

Masih Mohajeri’s comments to a news website in Tehran appear as an indirect message to the country’s 84-year-old ruler Ali Khamenei, although he mentions President Ebrahim Raisi’s embattled government.

Mohajeri, a cleric, was a regime insider since the very early days of the Islamic Republic and the editor of Jomhuri-e Eslami (Islamic Republic) newspaper for more than 40 years. He also served two presidents in the 1990s and early 2000s as advisor. However, he has been one of the few conservative voices in the country who have been sounding the alarm in recent years, arguing that the regime is going astray in many political and economic areas.

Ironically, his newspaper’s publication permit is registered to Ali Khamenei himself, who established the paper in the early 1980s as the official organ of the Islamic Republican Party, the governing clerical coalition following the 1979 revolution.

"We used to think during [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad's time that the worst government this country had seen was Ahmadinejad's government,” Mohajeri said, adding that now he believes the Raisi administration is much worse.

However, what bothers him, Mohajeri indicated, is that "No one listens, and the gentlemen who are in charge do whatever they want, pay no attention to warnings, and don't even consider warnings as friendly advice. They label it as pessimism and negative portrayal of the situation and are not willing to accept that they too are human and may make mistakes."

Many Iranians would instinctively assume that Mr. Mohajeri is addressing Khamenei, since the current political reality is ultimately his creation.

Many of the ultraconservatives currently ruling in Iran are former allies and officials of Ahmadinejad, with an overall bad reputation in terms of mis-governance during 2005-2013, when he was president.

They came to power in the 2020 parliamentary and the 2021 presidential elections, after the all-powerful Guardian Council, controlled by Khamenei, barred many other regime insiders from running for office.

Mohajeri spoke fondly of late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who died in 2017 at an old age, but under controversial circumstances. He argued that Rafsanjani was a problem solver who often prevented challenges from turning into crises.

His praise for the man, who in 1989 helped Khamenei become Supreme Leader, is another indication that Mohajeri was driving a message home. It is said that Khamenei did not like Rafsanjani’s wide-ranging influence and helped curtail it in the years before his death. However, in his interview, Mohajeri was indirectly comparing Khamenei to his rival.

Mohajeri was asked if there is any chance to transition from the current political situation, in the same way that Hassan Rouhani was elected in 2013, following Ahmadinejad’s two terms in office. He replied that there are politicians who can forge a transition, but they are not allowed to play a role.

Once again, indirectly referring to Khamenei, the old Islamic revolutionary said, “These conditions will only change if the top leadership decides to make elections competitive, free, and fair so that people have the maximum incentive to participate. These points are often talked about regarding elections, but they are not put into action. It has been this way until now, so we cannot hope for moderate individuals, who can make a difference, to come forward and take charge anytime soon.”