ELABORACIÓN DE LAS NORMAS DE CALIDAD AMBIENTAL

The Sepah’s and Basij’s ideological indoctrination and mobilisation take place in tandem with a peculiar system of distribution of privileges and benefits to its members and constituencies. A prominent example of distribution of patronage is the favouritism and entitlement given to the constituencies of the Sepah in regard to

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admission to higher education: for example, 40 percent of university slots are reserved for war veterans and their families. Most of these students are drawn from lower-class backgrounds and lack the academic standards required by the highly competitive university entrance examinations (Zahedi, 2000, p. 119). In 2008 and 2009, the regime made an attempt to expand the 40 percent admission quota for Basij students to state universities (Golkar, 2010, p. 25).

Of equal importance to the Sepah’s and the Basij’s allocation of privileges are their cooperative foundations (Bonyadha-ye Ta‘avoni). The Cooperative Foundation of the Sepah was established in the early 1980s through generous government assets in an attempt to take care of the needs of its veterans and servicemen. In 1989, with the delegation of its household goods and department stores to the Ministry of Defence and Armed Force Logistics, the Sepah’s Cooperative Foundation became mainly involved in two sectors: Housing and Loans.

The Cooperative Foundation began to provide free interest loans to the Corps’

members for housing, marriage and entrepreneurial activities. At the same time, it took on the task of acquisition of lands from the Ministry of Housing for construction of residential units in a number of small cities (Payame Enqelab, 1990c, pp. 14-15).

Alongside the Sepah’s cooperative, the Basij developed its own cooperative foundation during the 1990s. Accordingly, it followed in the Sepah’s footsteps by entering into the service sector (see Basij Resistance Force, 1996). Over the years, both the Sepah’s Cooperative Foundation and the Basij Cooperative Foundation developed their networks of banks, subsidiaries, and finance and credit institutes by cultivating their arrays of clients and businessmen. Beyond their own economic bases, both the Sepah and the Basij also accrue their financial muscle through their strong links with the Mostaz ‘afin Foundation and the Shahid Foundation. While the Sepah does not control the Foundations directly, it exerts indirect influence over them. From 1990 to 1999, the Mostaz ‘afin Foundation was headed by former Sepah veteran Mohsen Rafiqdust. Similarly, the head of the Mostaz ‘afin Foundation since 1999, Mohammad Forouzandeh, also comes from the ranks of the Sepah. The influence of the Sepah is also evident in the Shahid Foundation, with former Sepah Air Force Commander Hossein Dehghan acting as its director. Shahid provides home loans to thousands of Basijis and the families of martyrs. It has reportedly

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provided loans of approximately 120 million rials to urban families and 140 million rials to rural families (Rizvi, 2012, pp. 592-593).

The amalgam of financial patronage, ideological indoctrination and mass mobilisation described above has been in part due to the Sepah’s unique economic position in the state’s system of distribution of interest. As an important pillar of the regime the Sepah, like the religious revolutionary foundations, has privileged access to income arising from the state’s oil and gas revenue. The engagement of the Sepah in various economic ventures since 1990, coupled with its rise to political power, has enabled it to use its proximity to the state’s resources and funds to enhance its economic dealings and amass profits. This profit has enabled the Sepah to cultivate a network of state capitalist and technical staff while sustaining its pool of supporters from the ranks of its veterans and the lower classes. This network consists of a powerful financial elite and employees belonging to its own firms and subsidiaries or otherwise parastatal institutions. Chief among the venues through which the Sepah incorporates this web of socio-economic forces is its engineering firm, Khatam al-Anbiya (also known as Ghorb). Ghorb serves as one of the largest contractors for oil and gas, construction, agriculture, and mining; it employs 25,000 engineers and staff and own 812 registered companies inside and outside Iran (Sarmayeh, 2007c). The Sepah’s economic base also includes the abovementioned cooperative foundations.

In recent years, the cooperatives have developed into the financial vehicles of the Sepah and the Basij, primarily through their finance and credit institutions, which account for a substantial volume of deposits and new bank accounts in Iran by providing attractive loans and high-interest saving accounts for the urban population (for details see Chapter 5).

The commercial activities and socio-economic reach of the Sepah should not be seen as a rebuttal of either the arcane and non-transparent nature of its economic dealings or its advantageous position in relation to all economic actors. This advantage stems from the profile the Sepah maintains as an organisation which blurs the boundary between the public and quasi-public sectors. Although the Sepah is officially known as a state institution as decreed by Iran’s Constitution, in reality it operates as a parastatal or quasi-governmental institution which is independent from the government and is responsible only to the Supreme Leader. The Sepah obtains a significant amount of funding from the government’s annual budget. Nonetheless, not unlike religious revolutionary foundations, it is not subject to governmental

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oversight given that it is legally designated as being under the Supreme Leader’s authority (Moslem, 2002, p. 38). Adding to its autonomy and power within the state institution is the Sepah’s advanced machineries and private assets, as well as its political and economic ties to the political system, which has allowed it to build an unchallenged position in Iran’s economy. In recent years, particularly since the ascendancy of the Neo-Conservatives and the election of Ahmadinejad in 2005, the Sepah has been the main supplier of governmental contracts (see Chapter 5 for more details). A number of these were awarded to the Sepah out of favouritism and without competitive bidding, including the development of the 15^th and 16^th phases of the South Pars oilfield and the development of the gas pipeline from Assaluyeh to Sistan and Balouchestan. Beyond these developmental projects, the Sepah and the Basij have expanded their power over the country’s financial sector partly as a result of the privatisation of state-owned enterprises. In 2009, in the largest trade in the history of Tehran’s stock market, a consortium affiliated with quasi-governmental bodies and the Sepah’s Cooperative Foundation purchased 51 percent of the shares of Iran’s giant Telecommunication Company.

Notwithstanding its diverse constituency among the echelons of its connected business elite and a segment of Iranian citizens, it must be noted that the increasing economic power of the Sepah has unfolded at the expense of the exclusion of wide segments of society, including the bazaar, arrays of local private companies, and the middle class, from the economic scene. The scope of the Sepah’s commercial endeavours has expanded to such an extent that it sparked criticism within the ranks of the Conservative quarter, which is considered supportive of the Sepah and in accord with its religious revolutionary mindset. In the summer of 2010, the Conservative parliamentarian Elyas Nadaran criticised the handover of the telecommunication shares by the Ministry of Economy to the consortium partly affiliated with the Sepah. He likened the Ministry of Economy’s handover to a replacement of ‘the government monopoly with [a] quasi-government monopoly’

(Ictna, 2010).

The controversies surrounding the Sepah’s engagement in the national economy have had a negative implication on its cohesion and its populist-egalitarian façade. As the Sepah becomes increasingly ridden with corruption and nepotism, it may risk eroding its unity and religious revolutionary credentials, especially among the segment of the population which tends to view the Sepah favourably. While the

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Sepah’s constituencies in the lower strata of Iranian society are recipient of some benefits (as briefly described above), the privileges attached to membership in the Sepah and the Basij is by no means comparable to the substantial wealth amassed by senior Sepah officers and veterans. This disparity may engender antagonism among the social bases of the Sepah and the Basij, undermining their revolutionary tenacity and fervour (Thaler, et al., 2010, p. 63).

3.4 Political Contexts: The Political Elite, Factional Politics and