Khamenei's 35-year-long rule has made him the longest-serving head of state in the Middle East, as well as the second-longest-serving Iranian leader of the last century after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

[16] All candidates for the Assembly of Experts, the presidency and the Majlis (Parliament) are vetted by the Guardian Council, whose members are selected directly or indirectly by the Supreme Leader of Iran.

[7] Khamenei's education began at the age of four, by learning the Quran at Maktab;[7] he spent his basic and advanced levels of seminary studies at the hawza of Mashhad, under mentors such as Sheikh Hashem Qazvini and Ayatollah Milani.

[60] According to the Iran Chamber, vigorous opposition to the government, including nonviolent and violent protest, assassinations, guerrilla activity and insurrections, was answered by state repression and terror in the early 1980s, both before and during Khamenei's presidency.

[73] After the assembly rejected the idea of a Leadership Council, Khamenei was elected Leader by 60 of the 74 members present with Grand Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Golpaygani receiving the remaining 14 votes.

[89] According to Vali Nasr of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, "[Khamenei] [took] many of the powers of the presidency with him and [turned] the office of the supreme leader into the omnipotent overseer of Iran's political scene".

[53] Officials under Khamenei influence the country's various powers, and sometimes bickering, institutions, including "the parliament, the presidency, the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards, the military, the intelligence services, the police agencies, the clerical elite, the Friday prayer leaders and much of the media", as well as various "nongovernmental foundations, organizations, councils, seminaries and business groups".

After a few months, at a televised meeting with then-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his Cabinet ministers, important clerics, the leader of parliament and provincial governors, the heads of state broadcasting and the Iranian chamber of commerce, Khamenei ordered: "to pass some laws, sell off some businesses, and be quick about it."

In 1997, for example, Montazeri "questioned the powers of the Leader" and was subsequently punished for his comments with the closure of his religious school, an attack on his office in Qom, and a period of house arrest.

[117] Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Damien McElroy and Ahmad Vahdat observed: "The ayatollah likes to cultivate an image of austerity but receives major commissions from the Iranian oil and arms industries and there have been regular claims that he and his son have amassed a fortune running into billions of dollars.

"[118] A six-month investigation by Reuters has said that Khamenei controls a "financial empire" worth approximately US$95 billion that the Iranian Parliament does not oversee, a figure much larger than the estimated wealth of the late Shah of Iran.

Mukhber also cited a sum total grant of 2.21 trillion rials of Qard al-Hasan, interest-free loans, to 41 thousands families in poor regions of the country.

"[157] Earlier in 1996, he issued a fatwa stating, "The promotion of music [both traditional and Western] in schools is contrary to the goals and teachings of Islam, regardless of age and level of study.

[161] Also in 2002, after protests erupted in the capital, Khamenei intervened against the death sentence given to Hashem Aghajari for arguing that Muslims should re-interpret Islam rather than blindly follow leaders.

[164] A part of his 6 August 2019 message was as follows: The ritual of Bara'ah which means refusing every instance of mercilessness, cruelty, wrongdoing and corruption of the tyrants of any time, and rising against intimidation and extortion by the arrogant throughout history, is one of the great blessings of Hajj, and an opportunity for oppressed Muslim nations.

He said: "This crisis has forced the UN to declare state of emergency for food shortages around the globe but foreign radios have focused on Iran to imply that the current price hikes and inflation in the country are the results of carelessness on the part of Iranian officials which of course is not true."

[60] Khamenei took a firm stand against the 2009–10 Iranian election protests, and stated that he would neither reconsider vote results nor bow to public pressure over the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

[194] U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo criticized Khamenei for his refusal to condemn the Xinjiang internment camps and human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in China.

[206] On 19 July 2015, while speaking at a mosque in Tehran, Khamenei said to his supporters that the policies of the United States in the region were "180 degrees" opposed to Iran's political and religious movement.

"[77] In February 2024, it was announced that Meta Platforms had removed Khamenei's Facebook and Instagram accounts, citing repeated violations of its Dangerous Organizations & Individuals policy.

[228][229][230][231] In a September 2008 sermon for Friday prayers in Tehran, Khamenei stated that "it is incorrect, irrational, pointless and nonsense to say that we are friends of Israeli people",[232] because he believed that the occupation is done by means of them.

[242] On 21 February 2017, at the 6th International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Intifada, Khamenei regarded the withdrawal of Israel from south Lebanon in 2000 and from Gaza in 2005 as two major achievements so far.

The video, drawing on the March 2014 speech[253] and lasting about three minutes, features images of Holocaust deniers Roger Garaudy, Robert Faurisson, and David Irving.

Other accusations of antisemitism have come from Victoria Coates and Ellie Cohanim, who observe his Holocaust denial and find his "nine-point plan" to "wipe" Israel "off the face of the earth" uncomfortably reminiscent of Hitler's Final Solution;[258] and The Jerusalem Post, who quote Khamenei's attack on the 2020 Israel–United Arab Emirates normalization agreement: "The nation of Palestine is under various, severe pressures.

In response to Western complaints of human rights abuses in Iran he has stated that the American administration has committed many crimes and is therefore not fit to judge the Islamic Republic.

[266] During the Mahshahr massacre, protests expanded against "government corruption, failing institutions, lack of freedoms and the repressive rule of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei".

[274] Opposition journalists Ahmad Zeidabadi, Mohsen Sazegara, Mohammad Nourizad and Akbar Ganji were arrested and investigated[275][276][277][278] for spreading critical articles containing unproven charges against Khamenei's policies as the leader and some organizations.

"[157] This was called a use of "extra-legislative power" by reformists and opposition groups,[282] but Speaker of Parliament Mehdi Karroubi reminded deputies that "the constitution contained 'elements of the absolute rule of the supreme clerical leader'.

[287] In 2010, opposition activist Ahmad Gabel was sentenced to 20 months in jail for insulting Khamenei, as well as 3 additional years for possessing a satellite receiver, a 3-year exile and a fine.

Khamenei made these comments two days after Iranian women's rights activist Delaram Ali was sentenced to 34 months of jail and ten lashes by Iran's judiciary.