While Iranian regime President Ebrahim Raisi and the government’s economic team accuse critics of ignorance and fabricating statistics, Farshad Momeni, an economist who highlights the contradictions of the government, has labeled the statistics presented by the government as “fabricated” and states that the continuation of this trend will lead to further economic weakness and “erosion of legitimacy.”
Momeni told the regime’s semiofficial ILNA news agency, “The country’s vulnerability to poverty has increased, and in a three-year period at the end of the 2010s, the size of Iran’s poor population tripled.”
Momeni, criticizing the presentation of fabricated statistics, referred to claims of quality growth in the past three years by the government spokesperson and said, “Denying and ignoring problems does not solve them.”
At the same time, Jabbar Kuchaki Nejad, a member of the Majlis (parliament) Planning and Budget Commission, told the regime’s Khabar Online website on April 16 that “the analyses and statistics provided by the government’s economic team are unrealistic.”
Kuchaki Nejad, citing government statistics manipulation and the inefficiency of the economic team, called for the dismissal of all individuals from the vice president to all ministers, advisors, and economic managers of the government.
However, the government continues its course and seeks to align parliamentarians with itself. In this regard, after the increase in exchange rate fluctuations and the record registration of 700,000 rials for a dollar, Raisi’s parliamentary deputy considered the remarks and criticisms of parliamentarians contrary to the predictions of economic experts and the explicit statements of central bank managers as unfounded and asked them to refer to “government statistics” in their opinions.
In a statement, this parliamentary deputy attacked the government critics and representatives who have reported on the government’s “statistical manipulation” saying, “If only such individuals would benefit from media literacy training to know that casting doubt on the country’s official statistics is one of the opposing media’s tricks to avoid inadvertently playing into the enemy’s media puzzle.”
Raisi’s parliamentary deputy also referred critics to the statements of the regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei and wrote: “How can a respected member of parliament who should be aware of the resolutions and actions be unaware of the country’s official statistics or pretend to be so and be unaware of the emphasis of the leadership in disseminating the positive achievements of the government and the system, and strengthening hope and avoiding creating despair among the people?”
Economic analysts believe that this deputy is clearly targeting those who have questioned the government’s statistics against Ali Khamenei to prevent the continued questioning of the statistics by creating a climate of fear of security consequences.
This trend in the economy and the government’s efforts to align experts and parliamentarians in the dissemination of fabricated statistics come while Ebrahim Raisi said in April 2013 in a meeting with economic activists: “We are not seeking statistical manipulation in the economy; the clearer the figures, the better the people can engage in economic activities.”
These statements by Ebrahim Raisi were, in fact, a response to criticisms that peaked in 2022, and statistical manipulation was one of the main axes of criticism.
Criticism of the government’s statistical manipulation somewhat turned into a media war between the parliament news agency (ICANA) news agency, which is under the supervision of the parliament, and the government’s official news agency, IRNA.
On this basis, in the media war between IRNA and ICANA, this statistical manipulation became more apparent, and ICANA accused IRNA of fabricating statistics for the government.
However, this statistical manipulation also led to controversies and inconsistencies. In this regard, in one instance, Ali Bahadori Jahromi, the spokesperson for the government, said on March 14, 2023: More than 2,000 factories such as Mazandaran Textile, Hepco, and Bafq Steel became operational this year.
However, Raisi, without being informed of the statistics presented by the spokesperson, announced a week later that the number of revived factories in 2022 was “more than 3,000.”
