Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, May 9, 2019 – A double crisis has been running parallel in Iran in recent years; for the people, the crisis of living, and for the mullahs’ regime, the crisis of existence. Both crises are the result of a repressive regime that sacrifices the livelihood of the people for its very existence.
The outcome of such a policy is the execution of the most exploitive system of economy imposed on the Iranian people with a daily increase in prices that could break the back of society.
The cause of increasing cost;
The people’s agricultural product and their main essential goods are plundered by the corrupt regime and its affiliates. These goods are transferred to the neighboring countries by truckloads in order to bring currency for the cash-strapped regime. The impact of this policy is more poverty and increasing costs for the people that are struggling to have a decent life and make their ends meet.
One should know that this obtained currency is used for financing the regime’s expansionist policies as well as exporting terrorism and aggression to other countries to prolong the heinous life of the ruling mullahs in Iran.
The impact of such policy by the regime on the people would be a sheer upward slope of prices of essential goods which is still increasing as we talk. The people’s cries of high prices are everywhere nowadays. It is worth the time to mention a few examples of the regime’s treacherous policies.
Numbers talk
Mashreq website, May 5: The price comparison between May this year and the last, what has happened to shoot up the prices of some goods up to even 450 percent?
Etemad website, May 4: The head of what is called ‘fantasia bread’ says “the speed of the price increase in some items such as oil, sugar and other additives is so much that we can’t figure out how much to increase the price of our products.”
Farda website, May 2 published a shocking report about the skyrocketing prices: “during the entire last year, the price of 24 eatable items essential to the people’s dinner table has changed so drastically that the prices of some items have risen four folds.”
The same website cites ISNA news agency that: “the evaluation done by the Center for Statistics regarding the prices of 24 eatable items during past 12 months indicating 288 different price tags shows that in some items, such as tomato paste the price has gone from 58,000 rials per kilogram to 190,000 rials in just a matter of a year. The price of imported tea has risen 100,000 rials just for half a kilogram during the past year.”
ISNA news agency wrote it is worth having a look at some of the prices that have skyrocketed price wise at the beginning of the month of Ramadan, the month of fasting for Moslems around the world. “Each kilogram of domestic rice has increased 30,000 rials, each kilogram of sheep meat has increased 533,000 rials, beef, 473,000 rials, one liter of milk 18,000 rials, eggs, 14,000 rials, tomatoes 33,000 rials, potatoes 17,000 rials, onions 24,000 rials, sugar, 36,000 rials, liquid cooking oil 25,000 rials, and finally cheese has increased 30,000 rials to each kilogram.”
Adding salt to the injury
What seems to be hurting the most and adding salt to the injury is what Hassan Rouhani, the mullahs’ president has been repeating.
“The increasing costs of commodities are not economically based, they are merely psychological war,” Rouhani says.
In a similar comment, Rouhani’s deputy, vice president Jahangiri played his bosses’ nefarious role.
“There is no worry about the economic situation and the livelihood of the people,” Jahangiri said.
To learn the answer to such repulsive reactions, one should better look at the papers have to say.
“The gap in the paychecks some officials and directors receive with what ordinary people get is quite wide. Therefore, those officials cannot feel the pressures people have to endure. So, it is reasonable to understand why officials do not feel the burden of economic pressures and say the economy has no bearing on the price increase,” Arman daily reported on May 5.
Jahangiri also says the official value of a dollar is 45,000 rials, and that the people should not buy currency from the free market. But on the other hand, official media in Iran reported only a couple of days ago that the value of the dollar is 150,000 rials. Everybody knows that no entity or person has influence over the Central Bank, other than the government itself. So, Jahangiri’s comments would only bring bitter laughter to frustrated faces.
The address to social injustice is the ruling mullahs, not sanctions
The reflection to the grand economic corruption in the clerical regime ruling Iran and the increasing costs of goods have turned to a political and economical factional infighting. The outcome of such a policy would be further pressures and its destructive effects on the lives of the ordinary people.
Iranian regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei and Hassan Rouhani his president demagoguery are trying to pretend that these pressures on people are the result of sanctions imposed on the regime and to alienate the people from the real cause, being the vast corruption from top to the bottom of this regime. But the people have never been fooled by these deceptive claims.
“It is obvious that more than 80% of our problems stem from the government’s failed policies and the wrongdoings of the administrative branch,” Javan online affiliated to the IRGC cited Mohammad Reza Sabzalipour, an economist and the president of Iran’s Global Business said on February 1, 2019.
The final thought
It is therefore obvious that the root cause of all these problems from the increasing costs of commodities, to the crisis of the livelihood the people are struggling with, lies on the crisis of the regime’s very existence and its legitimacy. The skyrocketing prices, that are choking the society to the edge of another revolt, stem from a political crisis. Therefore with the total and decisive elimination of the plague of this clerical rule, the pieces of the puzzle would sit in the right place and the country and the nation would see the lights of economic growth, developments, happiness, and true democracy.
