Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, September 2, 2021—These days, Iranian regime officials and state-run media are using terms such as “explosive” and “unbridled” to describe skyrocketing prices in Iran’s markets, which are breaking the people’s backs. Meanwhile, the people of Iran are faced with the added pressure of the worsening coronavirus pandemic. Pictures and videos being posted on social media by the Iranian people are heart-rending, especially given that Iran is rich in resources: People bent waist deep in trash bins, looking for food; farmers crying out that they can’t provide for their families; labor children hawking goods in the streets and polishing shoes to make ends meet; and many more.
Regime-run newspapers openly admit to the dire economic situation. The Sabzineh newspaper ran a piece on August 31, titled, “The explosive rise in prices of food items in the past months.” And the ILNA news agency published a piece titled, “Construction workers are dying to earn their bread.”
In August, the official inflation rate was 45.2 percent, according to Tejarat News. Hamshahri daily reported on August 30 that the prices of cheese and bread, the most basic food items of worker-class families who can’t buy meet, have increased by 38 and 50 percent in the past weeks. And the price of meet has become so high that families must buy meet by the gram, Hamshahri reported.
The price of housing in Tehran has gone through the roof, to the point that the most affordable houses are priced at 150 million rials per cubic meter. This means that if a worker saves up all his earnings and buys nothing, it will take him 40 years to save enough money to buy a house. In a visual report on Monday, Hamshahri wrote that prices of basic goods have increased so much that “people have to sell their home appliances to cover their basic expenses.”
The root of this situation is the looting of Iran’s resources and economy by financial mafia tied to regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), institutions like the Astan-e Qods, Bonyad Shahid, SETAD, and other tax-exempt financial institutions that report directly to Khamenei’s office.
This has become such a widely known issue that the regime’s own officials, in their rivalries, are admitting it. On August 31, former health minister Saied Namaki said “We are faced with a mafia with its maw agape” and added that “we are faced with shortage of goods in the market and a surplus of good in customs.” It is worth noting that all major border customs are under the control of the IRGC.
While the regime’s leaders have benefitted immensely from the corrupt hold they have on the economy, they are also worried about how all of these problems are compounding and getting back to them.
On Tuesday, the state-run Resalat newspaper warned about a society with “a dormant rage that has piled up” and wrote, “The people’s patience is running thin.”
