During his inauguration ceremony back in August 2021, the Iranian regime President Ebrahim Raisi blamed the country’s high inflation and economic crises on the government of his predecessor Hassan Rouhani. However, while blaming Rouhani, Raisi resorted to his known tactics of making hollow promises of “major developments” and “changing the status quo” in his first speech as president. Eight months down the road Raisi has failed to deliver any positive outcome. All the while, the country’s economy is facing unprecedented crises such as inflation, unemployment, with poverty afflicting a growing segment of the population.
State media in Iran, known for their underreporting of such stats, have been using interesting terms in their recent publications “inflation above 40 percent,” “rise in liquidation above 46 percent,” “unemployment at over 12 percent,” while referring to a growing divide among the society’s classes, as mentioned in an April 3 piece of the state-run Mardom Salari daily.
Experts in the regime’s own institutions are reminding that official “inflation rates do not match the people’s purchasing power,” noting that Raisi is lying in his repetitive and baseless proclamations of economic developments.
“The fake information production machine has engulfed the [Raisi] government,” said Hossein Raghfar, an economist linked to the regime, on April 3.
The price of imported medicine has seen a six-fold rise, while the price of domestically produced medicine has witnessed a 30 to 100 percent increase, according to recent remarks made by Bahram Daraie, head of the regime’s Food and Drug Organization.
And prior to the month of Ramadan that began on April 3 in Iran, the Raisi cabinet increased the price of each kilo of dates (a popular traditional side-dish for people who break their fast every evening during the month of Ramadan) to 1.5 million rials, leaving many unable to afford such a simple item.
The Raisi cabinet has also announced that metro, taxi, and bus rates will increase by 25 to 35 percent as of April 21, placing even more pressure on the millions of people dependent on the country’s already worn-out and dilapidated public transportation system. Imposing such a steep price hike on public transportation will most definitely lead to a spike in overall inflation.
On the other hand, millions of Iranians are desperate to make ends meet with salaries already under the poverty line while unemployment continues to rise. To add insult to injury, regime officials are increasing their own salaries while many regime insiders are ever more involved in massive thefts and corruption, immediately and directly expanding poverty.
Periodic reports seen in state media of poverty in Iran are only the tip of the iceberg. The state-run “Eghtesad-e Pouya” daily acknowledged the “unprecedented poverty across the country and a growing number of people desperate to merely make ends meet” in a piece in January. The daily added that of Iran’s 80 million population, an alarming 60 million live in poverty “of which 40 million are in absolute poverty and barely have anything to eat.”
Ongoing cases of massive theft by the regime’s own institutions is another phenomenon pushing more and more Iranians into poverty and desolation. As rising medicine prices are posing risks to the lives and well-being of millions of Iranians, state media are acknowledging that “antibiotics, insulin, Ritalin, and injected Intravenous immune globulin (IVIG) medicines, cancer medication, and drugs used for special illnesses are easily being smuggled out of the country,” according to an April 3 piece published in the state-run Hamshahri daily.
Regime officials and insiders admit that this smuggling is being carried out by state-linked mafia and that Iran under the mullahs’ regime “has a very strong mafia involved in medical equipment and medicine, which is the strongest of such mafias” in the world.
“One aspect of this mafia must be the [Raisi] government, otherwise there would be no mafia at all,” said Seyed Jalil Mirmohammadi Meybodi, a member of the regime’s Majlis (parliament) Health Commission, on April 3.
This is the net result of Raisi’s promises. One shouldn’t be surprised, knowing that regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had Raisi installed as his president with the sole objective of containing Iran’s increasingly restive society.
However, this unprecedented scale of corruption and the destruction of the country’s wealth while tens of millions of Iranians are suffering will only lead the inevitable sooner than later. Khamenei and Raisi, and their entire regime apparatus, know full well that future uprisings like the nationwide protests of November 2019 are only a matter of time.
Date? [AS1]
