Ashtari–Ghorbanzadeh debate: mutual exposures inside the Islamic Republic's camp

The two-hour debate on Monday, 26 October 2026, between Vahid Ashtari, a media activist of the current that calls itself "justice-seeking", and Hossein Ghorbanzadeh, a board member of Persian Gulf Holding and former head of the Privatisation Organisation, was supposed to be about unreturned oil revenue and the running of Iran's largest petrochemical holding. In the assessment of DIAR's analysts, what it actually displayed was a structure in which exposure is a weapon in a power struggle, not a path to accountability.

Two sides of one camp

The debate was broadcast by Fars news agency, which is affiliated with the IRGC. Both sides come from inside the regime's camp. Ashtari has been known for years for his exposures of officials, including the claim that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf's family travelled to Turkey to buy a layette, which led to a complaint by Ghalibaf and a prison sentence for Ashtari. Media inside Iran describe Ghorbanzadeh as close to Ghalibaf.

In the debate Ashtari asked how Ghorbanzadeh had got onto the board of Persian Gulf Holding and whether political connections had played a role in management changes at the company. He also spoke of conflicts of interest in the working group on countering sanctions and of oil dealings by people close to the parliament speaker.

Chats that turned the tables

Ghorbanzadeh's answer was not a defence of his record but images of messages attributed to Ashtari. According to the account of media inside Iran, these messages showed that while publicly criticising the holding, Ashtari was talking to the same holding's public relations office about cooperation and getting projects. Ashtari has questioned the authenticity of the messages. The video of the debate was deleted from his Telegram channel after it aired.

In the assessment of DIAR's analysts, if these messages are genuine, the meaning is clear: a critic who presented himself as a defender of public funds was, behind the scenes, seeking a share of the very structure he criticised. And if they are not, a board member of the country's largest petrochemical holding resorted to unreliable documents to silence his critic on a programme broadcast by the IRGC's outlet. Either way, the people of Iran are watching a quarrel whose subject is their own wealth.

The shadow of Babak Zanjani

Babak Zanjani's name was also dragged into the dispute. Zanjani was sentenced to death in the case of oil revenue from the sanctions era; his sentence was later reduced and he was released. After the debate he denied on X any acquaintance or relationship with Ashtari. That the name of the convict in the Islamic Republic's biggest oil corruption case is now used as a weapon in a fight between two regime figures itself shows that these cases never reached a transparent conclusion.

A billion-dollar claim about oil revenue

In the same debate Ghorbanzadeh called for the trial of former oil minister Mohsen Paknejad and claimed that of about $32 billion in oil sales during his one-year term, nearly $4.7 billion was never collected. This figure is the claim of a regime official and no independent body has confirmed it. But the claim itself, coming from an insider, shows into what cycle Iran's oil revenue disappears in the years of sanctions.

What this quarrel means for Iran

The Islamic Republic has for years made the fight against corruption its slogan. But the 26 October debate showed that corruption in this structure is not a marginal phenomenon that can be fixed by exposing a few names. Exposure in this regime happens when the interests of two factions collide, and after that there is no independent court, free press or accountable oversight body to pursue the case to the end.

Meanwhile, infighting within the regime is intensifying in days when people face flour shortages and closed bakeries, and pensioners who cannot afford medical treatment.

In the assessment of DIAR's analysts, the way out of this cycle is not replacing one manager with another from the same camp, but a transition to an order in which national wealth is managed under the oversight of independent institutions, free media and impartial courts.

In the 26 October debate, a regime critic and a regime manager accused each other of corruption, and there is no body to examine the charges against either of them.