Masoumi, Product and Student of Mesbah
Masoumi, Product and Student of Mesbah, according to the Iran Gate news report, the Resistance Front, the 88 elections, the legendary wealth of the Urmia circle, each of these words can bring to mind a number of names, but the common denominator of all these words becomes one person: Sadegh Masoumi.
The Beginning of the Story
He is 64 years old and was born in Urmia. His father was a fabric seller in the Urmia market. Before the revolution, he was admitted to the University of Science and Technology, where he studied civil engineering. It is likely that Sadegh Masoumi and Ahmadinejad began their friendship there, as Ahmadinejad was also studying at the same university and in the same field. Of course, Ahmadinejad was probably a year senior to Masoumi.
In 1980 and before the start of the war, Masoumi was appointed as the governor of his hometown Urmia. At the same time, with the order of Mahdavi Kani, the then Minister of Interior, he was also the political and security deputy of the West Azerbaijan province. Reza Golpour, a historian of the revolution’s history, says about Masoumi that he was responsible for cleansing the leftist faction of Urmia during the governorship of Mr. Taheri and Ebrahimi.
In October 1981, after the national Guard was divided into 10 regions, the provinces of East and West Azerbaijan became known as Region Five of the Guard. Masoumi was appointed as the commander of the Guard’s Region 5. It is said that he, who was based in Tabriz, left the region and started working in Tehran due to the strong opposition of Hassani, the Friday prayer leader of Urmia.
After commanding Region 5 of the Guard, he worked as the deputy inspector of the Guard until 1985. He then became the commander of the Special Guard Brigade. The Special Guard Brigade later merged with another brigade, forming the 6th Guard Division, which was an active force during the Kirkuk operation in 1986.
In that division, Parviz Fattah was the deputy commander, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was responsible for the division’s engineering. The starting point of the connection of the Urmia circle rings was at this point, rings that were connected at that time and probably remain connected today. Between 1989 and 1991, Masoumi was an advisor to Commander Zolghadr, the chief of the Joint Staff of the Guard. According to Golpour’s claim, he resigned from the Guard for reasons including the lack of approval from Rahim Safavi, the then deputy of the Guard, for his promotion to the rank of Brigadier General.
When did Masoumi start economic activities?
From that time, he entered economic activities, mostly in the field of construction. Until 2005, Masoumi was engaged in economic work, but with the advent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government, a different fate awaited him. Masoumi, who had not been actively involved in politics.
Later appeared in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government. Initially, Ahmadinejad intended to have him as the Minister of Oil in his first government, precisely where many accusations and ambiguities surrounded Masoumi. Accusations and ambiguities, one of which was regarding the oil swap privilege in West Azerbaijan.
This introduction provoked strong reactions among the parliamentarians. Ghodratollah Alikhani, the representative of Qazvin in the seventh parliament, said that Masoumi must answer how he acquired the expensive house, billion-dollar income from the Mir-Damavand towers, and large lands in the Hassani Kia area.
Where did you get it from?
Ali Asgari, the representative of Mashhad in the same parliament, also referred to Ahmadinejad’s promotional film for the 2005 presidential election and said that when the head of the government showed a simple house of his to the people, it would be better to invite a simple-living manager to the cabinet because even if Mr. Masoumi’s wealth is from a legitimate source, comparing it with Ahmadinejad’s simple house does not match.
At that time, the suspicion surrounding Masoumi’s wealth and assets, in addition to the oil swap stories, was also tied to his economic activities in the private sector and the field of construction and housing projects. Nonetheless, Masoumi himself denied the claims about his legendary wealth and insisted that he had participated in only 44 government tenders and auctions, winning only three.
However, the story of the legendary wealth of Ahmadinejad’s close friend became so noisy that on the very day Masoumi was supposed to go to parliament to defend himself for a vote of confidence, he announced his withdrawal in a letter to the parliament. In other words, Masoumi, probably observing the atmosphere of the parliament and the statements surrounding his wealth, decided to avoid raising such issues from the parliament’s podium and, instead, Ahmadinejad appointed him as his advisor.
After Ali Kordan was impeached by the eighth parliament, Ahmadinejad introduced his long-time friend to head the most important ministry of that time. The Ministry of Interior was supposed to hold a sensitive presidential election a few months later.
Some believe that Masoumi’s special task was to conduct the tenth presidential election because he left the Ministry of Interior in September 2009. Two months later, he returned to Ahmadinejad’s cabinet, this time as the Minister of Welfare and Social Security, until 2011.
The astronomical wealth and controversial life of Masoumi
But what always keeps Masoumi in the spotlight are the zeros that follow his wealth, wealth that many consider legendary. In 2011, on the eve of the eighth parliamentary elections, the political atmosphere was similar to these days. It was the first voting after the election held by Masoumi in 2009.
Two factions of conservatives were competing with each other, and for this reason, the newly established Resistance Front was competing with the conservative coalition. Thus, Ghasem Ravanbakhsh representing the Resistance Front and Alireza Zakani representing the conservative coalition debated. In this debate, Zakani said that Mr. Sadegh Masoumi, who declares that his religious tax is 450 million tomans, his work with us is clear, while our religious tax is only 450 thousand tomans.
Ravanbakhsh also responded to Zakani, saying that we are glad you found someone like Sadegh Masoumi to speak against the Resistance Front. If you had found any embezzlement from him when he was the Minister of Interior, you would have hung him from the moon. You should know that if someone’s wealth is legitimate, there is no problem. You bring up Mr. Masoumi’s 450 million toman religious tax payment in every election session, which is not right.
The piggy bank of the Resistance Front
In other words, if the religious tax at that time for Masoumi’s surplus wealth was 450 million tomans, the total wealth would be 2 billion and 250 million tomans. It should be noted that the religious tax does not apply to assets like residential homes used by the individual and their family, consumable vehicles, money used for living expenses, and other properties used, but only to surplus assets.
With this account, if Masoumi’s surplus wealth at that time was more than 2 billion tomans, probably the legendary wealth of the godfather of today’s Resistance Front and the several hundred-meter house in Dibaji should be true. A godfather who some believe plays the role of an ATM for this radical conservative faction.
Masoumi in the role of the godfather
After the death of Mesbah Yazdi, the spiritual father of the Resistance members, different approaches were seen in this political organization. Morteza Agha Tehrani, the hardline representative of the eleventh parliament, was the secretary-general of the Resistance, who a few months after his presence in the parliament, Sadegh Masoumi took over this position. Previously, the title of godfather had been attached to Masoumi.
Because at the time of closing the conservative list and also recruiting for the parliamentary board elections, all ways of interacting with the Resistance ended with him. However, when Haddad Adel intervened between the Resistance and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, it was Morteza Agha Tehrani, the then secretary-general, who was assigned to be present in the agreed negotiations. Probably the godfather did not consider himself in this capacity.
The current godfather of the Resistance members does not have much interest in media presence, but finally, a couple of months ago, he came out of the dark corridor of the Resistance Front and spoke in a student gathering. Last week, he came under the media spotlight again at the general assembly of this political organization and gave a speech there, which, of course, as the secretary-general, should have happened.
Essentially, Sadegh Masoumi’s role is more criticized and discussed for his financial and economic role than for his political actions. Masoumi has never talked about how he acquired such legendary wealth. This has led to many rumors about it, including 160 million dollars in assets in 2006, which he denies, but at the same time, he has not stated his intended figure.
It is unclear whether the suspicions about Masoumi’s wealth are correct or if his wealth generation has followed the rule of ‘money brings money.’ Of course, to bring money, besides such money, other things are also needed, which Masoumi has been well endowed with.
