“I say that the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Iran’s parliament) is slowly reaching the Martyrs’ Square. My brother, we do not have any schools in this country, and forty years after the revolution, many of our children are still studying in sheds.
At that time, the parliament increased its construction budget day by day. The representative should defend the rights of the nation, not make his office bigger and bigger. You should now go to the building of all the governorates. For the second time after the revolution in some of the provinces as I know, (they are reconstructing the buildings). In the central province, in the Hormozgan province, for several times they have (reconstructed) the governorates, the governorates are becoming palaces, so we are expanding the palaces of Mu’awiya I (the founder and first caliph of the Umayyad Caliphate serving from 661 until his death), while our people’s needs are something else.” (Mehdi Pazouki, Economist, State-TV Channel Ofogh, June 5, 2021)
This short text is exposing the corruption of Iranian government officials which has reached unimaginable stages so that many of the officials are expressing their fear about the consequences of such behavior and the people’s fury. Just a few parameters are enough to show this situation.
Liquidity overflooded the country’s economy
“The volume of liquidity in the country has increased from 160 trillion tomans to 350 trillion tomans during the last three years. This means that more than 50% of the total liquidity in the country’s history has been created during the last three years, which is considered an unprecedented record in the world.” (Mehr news agency, June 7, 2021)
Iran on the verge of ‘super inflation’
“The analyses of some experts show that the situation can be even more difficult. These forecasts emphasize that the Iranian economy is now ready for three-digit inflation; a rate that was experienced only during the years of occupation of the country in World War II.” (Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade website, June 9, 2021)
A report on the bankruptcy of the economy
“Average economic growth of the country during the years 1997 to 2004, from 2005 to 2012 and 2013 to 2019 has been constantly deteriorating and has decreased from 3.5% to 2.17% and 0.63%. The growth of investment is worse than economic growth, and in most years, it has been negative, which will destroy the country’s productive capacity for many years and will seriously damage the country’s employment.
“Inflation in Iran has had the worst performance, while the problem of inflation is now solved in most countries of the world. The change in the exchange rate has also shown the deterioration of the national currency. The exchange rate has increased almost 5.7 times from 2017 to 2020 and has grown by about 466 percent.
“People’s purchasing power has also been steadily declining. For example, in 2019 and after 17 years, it has reached less than the purchasing power index of the people in 2002. Money growth has increased uncontrollably since 2018 and has experienced growth rates of about 50%, and unfortunately, its growth in 2020 has reached 7.61%.
“The labor force participation rate in Iran in the last 10 years has been in the range of 9.36 to 5.44 percent, which is very low and indicates that a large part of the population is not economically active and cannot play a role in increasing the country’s economic production.” (Report by the Macroeconomic Committee of Iran’s Expediency Council)
Political misery worse than economic misery
The people’s problem is indigence, not the political factions. Now, the most important thing in the economic arena is to eliminate unemployment and curb inflation. The reformists have lost their popular base because the reformists were mainly elites, and the elites supported this faction, but now even the elites do not support this faction.” (Eghtesad-e-Pouya, June 7, 2021)
