Iran’s power outage crisis and the shutdown of the country amidst freezing temperatures, coupled with regime president Masoud Pezeshkian’s sermonizing about conserving energy, have even drawn criticism from within the regime itself. The state-run Jahan Sanat newspaper wrote in its March 1 edition: “With less than 20 days left until the end of winter, electricity is still the country’s primary issue. The president is calling on people to conserve energy… But the realities tell a different story.”
The “different story” is the impasse of the bankrupt regime and its incurable crises. Following the defeat of supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s warmongering policies in the region, these crises have emerged in various fields, including the shutdown of the country and the expansion of internal and social crises.
On January 12, 2025, the state-run Ham-Mihan newspaper warned that “Iran has shut down; now, air pollution and imbalances have joined forces and put the government in a critical situation… It seems that the shortage of electricity and gas may be the main cause of this, although, since accurate and clear information has not been provided, there may be another reason.”
The narrative of realities about the incurable crisis of the regime is widely discussed by the leaders, commanders, and members of the regime’s parliament, and it emerges in the infighting among regime officials and factions who have turned on each other in fear of the regime’s dark and bleak fate.
On Wednesday, February 26, a number of members of the regime’s parliament, in fear of the eruption of public anger over the unusual power outages and the shutdown of the country, lashed out at the regime’s president.
Alireza Nasari: “Mr. Dr. Pezeshkian, the unusual closures, mainly of schools and government offices, have led to public discontent. We are not supposed to compensate for mismanagement and lack of proper management in addressing imbalances in this way.”
Farshad Ebrahim Pour: “How long should we witness unplanned and ill-considered holidays? The future of the country has become a plaything of mismanagement; the government has no control over the market.”
Mohammadpour: “The open-ended closures that we have for our students, our schools, our teachers, our industries, and our farmers—people are fed up. We had a gas problem in the winter; we have an electricity problem in the summer. Today, we have encountered major problems with both.”
Mahmoudi: “I have a serious complaint about the continuous power outages in our production units and industries, especially in industrial towns. Unfortunately, after cutting off power to homes, industrial towns and production units are severely damaged by this. Workers are unemployed; production lines are stopped.”
Ebrahimi: “Power outages in production units are a sign of an imbalance in planning, reason, prudence, and desire.”
Bamiri: “Have you felt the pain of powerlessness and waterlessness? Have you felt the burden of astronomical electricity tariffs? Have you been informed of the power outages of agricultural wells?”
Then, MP Mojtaba Zonnuri, referring to the astronomical looting of national resources and the meager livelihoods of the deprived, said: “Every day that is a holiday, more than 70 trillion rials are spent by the government from the people’s pockets. Every day of the country’s closure causes more than 250 trillion rials in damage to the private sector and the country’s economy, to industrialists, farmers, and others. Your agencies should talk to the people honestly; do not say it is closed due to cold weather, because tomorrow it will be closed due to heat.”
MP Abolghassem Jarareh, in fear of the spread of protests and the uprising of farmers and industrialists, said: “The painful issue of energy imbalance and power outages has exhausted the producers.”
Bankruptcy, helplessness, imbalance, and the shutdown of the country are the other side of the coin of the increasing shouts and anger of farmers, workers, and deprived people fed up in an explosive society ready for an uprising; an ever-increasing anger and a fire that will not be extinguished until the overthrow and shutdown of the entire regime of looters and executioners.