Iran International
Iranian experts and media are criticizing claims by President Ebrahim Raisi that the government has created nearly one million new jobs in the past year.
Presenting the budget bill to the parliament last week, Raisi claimed there is proof that his administration has succeeded in creating over 900,000 new jobs as he had promised during his campaign.
“This claim is so strange and far from reality that I prefer not to talk about,” Kamal Athari, development researcher and economist told Bahar News Tuesday, adding that such claims are easy to make in the absence of reliable data. “How is it possible for employment to increase when the rate of economic growth has been declining?” he asked.
He also said it is noteworthy that during Raisi’s presidency even the jobs created before the pandemic and when the nuclear deal with world powers, JCPOA, was in effect were lost and inflation and people’s loss of income is threatening others such as the hospitality sector.
Athari also criticized the government for lack of coordination and an overall disorientation. “They have no plans for dealing with inflationary stagnation in the housing sector but they name housing as the engine of growth,” he said.
The claim was repeated by the Minister of Labor Seyed Sowlat Mortazavi Tuesday. “The government has succeeded in creating one million job in one year as it had promised,” he said.
Khorasan newspaper, which supports the Raisi Administration and is linked to the office of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, criticized Mortazavi and said the claim was in contradiction with the figures released by the Statistics Center of Iran (SCI) which shows from September 2021 to September 2022 the number of people with employment only rose by 535,000. This meant, Khorasan pointed out, that 465,000 jobs were lost even if one million jobs were created as the government claims.
Figures released by the SCI indicate that over 665,000 new job seekers of fifteen-years-old and above have entered the job market during the same period.
Speaking to Nameh News website Wednesday, Mohammad Mohajeri, a conservative journalist, warned that officials provide “fake statistics” to the president. Their eagerness to create an illusion of “achievements” would have dire consequences for the government, he maintained.
“I don’t know how long this unhelpful attitude of officials has to continue for the government to realize that faking achievements and statistics will cause the downfall of the government,” Mohajeri said, adding that there is also a concern that there may be brave experts in the government whose warnings are being ignored. “This is even a bigger calamity.”
Many on both sides of Iran's political spectrum have criticized Raisi and his government for inefficiency and lack of planning while blaming all shortcomings on previous governments including Raisi’s immediate predecessor Hassan Rouhani.
Rising Inflation and depreciation of the national currency, rial, which have been problems since 2018 when President Donald Trump left the 2015 nuclear deal are now turning into serious crises the government seems unable to address.
The point-to-point inflation rate reported by the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) for the past Iranian month, which ended on January 20, has surpassed 50 percent, with food inflation hitting an average of over 70 percent.
In its latest report the SCI put overall inflation at 51 percent, taking into account 12 groups of goods and services. The highest jump was reported in the hotel and restaurant sector with 78.5 percent, followed by food.
Imanabadi added in an interview with Rouydad24 website that poverty and unemployment will rise in the next Iranian year which starts on March 21. According to the former lawmaker the gap between socio-economic classes in Iran is also going to widen next year. All this, he said, indicates that "the future is going to be bleak" for Iranians.
Referring to Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi's promising remarks about low inflation and high economic growth, Imanabadi further charged that "Iran's economy has not grown and the statistics in this regard are wrong. Either President Ebrahim Raisi is being fed with wrong information or he is not interested in telling the truth."
He complained that "Those who worked hard for this country for 40 years are now out of a job and are replaced by a bunch of liars who run the country."
Speaking along the same lines, Hassan Khomeini, a grandson of Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, who was "advised" by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei not to run in 2021 presidential vote, also said in an interview with reformist news website Jamaran that the 1979 revolution brought about a sizeable middle class in Iran which has disappeared as a result of the current economic crisis in Iran.
Speaking about the increasing hardship today, Khomeini warned that poverty which is the outcome of oppression will eventually lead to a revolution.
Speaking about the ongoing protests in Iran, he said the government should not try to win or keep the power at any rate. He added: "The solution to the country's current situation is holding a dialogue with the people." Meanwhile he called for putting an end to violence in the confrontation with the protesters.
He added that when the people become angry those who are underprivileged will revolt and when it spreads, "there will be a revolution to change the society's leader, structure and ideology."
This is the clearest warning given to the Iranian government by a well-known cleric about a looming revolution in Iran.
Khomeini, addressed the reformist National Trust Party, told the party's leaders not to be shy about voicing their demands. "Stand on your feet and be bold," he said.
Regardless of Imanabadi’s and Khomeini's warnings about the dangers of increasing poverty, Labor Minister Solat Mortazavi claimed in an interview with Aftab News websitethat there is no “absolute poverty” in Iran. This comes while according to Aftab News, Mortazavi himself was a victim of absolute poverty when he used to live in Baba Heydar village in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiary Province before joining the government and becoming a rich man.
Mortazavi started his career as Basij commander in his village. Aftab News further charged that of course there is no absolute poverty in Mr. Mortazavi's family because he has given good jobs to his sons!
Aftab News further quoted Hamid Haj Esmaili, a researcher in the area of labor and poverty, as saying that "Eliminating absolute poverty is one of the responsibilities of the government. However, poverty has been constantly on the rise after the 1979 revolution. He added that some 30 million Iranians are depending on charity organizations for their daily meal which is a high figure for a country with 85 million people.
Esmaili added that some 67 million Iranians depend on the subsidy for fuel and in all, some 74 million receive some sort of cash handouts. He estimated that some 70 million Iranians suffer from absolute or relative poverty.
Since September, the country has been in turmoil. Protests have somehow slowed down in recent weeks, but there is no sign that the crisis is anywhere near resolution. In fact, many believe that the relative quiet these days is only the calm before a storm.
After protests during which people regularly chanted against clerical rule and its top authority, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and the killing of over 500 protesters within the last four months, elections next year does not appear to be of interest to most Iranians now.
Young protesters who often chant “Reformist-Principlist, this is the end of the story” see little difference between regime hardliners and reformists who want to make changes in the Constitution and laws to make them more democratic within the framework of the Islamic Republic.
In November, some prominent reformists figures met with top officials including Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani, and Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi to start a dialogue over the current circumstances and the unrest in the country.
Media reported that they demanded the authorities to stop violence against protesters and open the atmosphere and allow people’s voices to be heard. They were reportedly promised that a few of them could meet with and directly convey their concerns to Khamenei but it appears that their plea has completely been ignored.
Some reformists have argued that the only way the country can be saved from its dire economic, social and political crisis is through the ballot box, but also said the hardliner Guardian Council which staunchly refuses to allow anyone outside their political circle to run in any elections has completely blocked that path.
However, it is not clear if ‘reformists’ only want their names to appear on ballot papers, or are also in favor of allowing opponents of the regime to be allowed to run.
Even before the current spate of protests, a considerable majority of Iranians were already deeply frustrated with the tightly controlled elections and voting for the very few moderate-reformist candidates who are allowed to run. Even when elected, these officials had no real power in a system dominated by hardliners and conservatives collectively known as Principlists.
The deeply disgruntled electorate very clearly turned its back on ballot boxes in the latest election. Participation rate in the June 2021 presidential elections dropped to an all-time low of 48%. These included 13% void ballots cast by voters who felt they had to vote but did not favor any of the four candidates filtered by the Guardian Council, including a less prominent reformist.
In a note in Etemad newspaper on January 22, former reformist lawmaker Kamaleddin Pourmoazen warned that it is no longer possible to accede to “a hugely ambiguous and untransparent [election] law” that hardliners easily manipulate to limit the nation’s right to determine its destiny.
Referring to the low turnout in the previous parliamentary and presidential elections, he said it is no longer possible to run the country with officials elected with minimal participation of the electorate and ignore the rest.
The totalitarian Paydari Front, which has now spread its dominion to nearly all centers of power, will only make the country more vulnerable against threats, both domestically and internationally, and deepen the rift between the rulers and the ruled, he warned. In the current circumstances the ruling hardliners have no way out of the impasse they have created other than opening up the political atmosphere for real, he argued.
As hundreds of people demonstrated near the central bank headquarters in Baghdad on Wednesday to protest the devaluation of the Iraqi dinar against the dollar, which has triggered a rise in prices of imported consumer goods, an informed source told Iran International that representatives from the Iraqi government are scheduled to go to US next month to investigate the smuggling of dollars from Iraq to Iran.
People from different Iraqi regions waved Iraqi flags or carried banners demanding government intervention to stop the dinar's decline to around 1,620 to the greenback from 1,470 in November. “Stop the neighbors stealing our dollars,” one banner read, alluding to Iran. The protesters demand that the government must intervene to stop the decline of dinar value because people are suffering from high prices in local markets.
According to Iran International’s source, who asked not to be named, it is not clear whether Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia' Al Sudani will head the delegation or not. The visit could take place in early February.
The dinar went into a tailspin against the dollar after the New York Federal Reserve imposed tighter controls on international dollar transactions by commercial Iraqi banks in November to halt the illegal siphoning of dollars to neighboring Iran, which is under tough US sanctions.
The move blocked more than 80 percent of Iraqi bank transfers. Under the curbs that took effect this month, Iraqi banks must use an online platform to reveal their transaction details. But most private banks have not registered on the platform and resorted to informal black markets in Baghdad to buy dollars.
This has created dollar shortages as demand has outstripped supply and accelerated the dinar's descent against the greenback. The Wall Street Journal recently reported that the intensification of pressure on the Islamic Republic has caused the value of Iraq's currency to drop.
Sudani replaced the central bank governor on Monday as he had not taken effective steps to tackle the consequences of the new Fed regulations and their impact on the dinar.
Late in December, an informed source in Baghdad told Iran International that Washington has received reports on Iraq conducting trade with Iran using US dollars despite US sanctions. This source added that the names and bank account numbers that have secretly interacted with Iran have not yet been revealed, but the Biden administration has found out that a large amount of US dollars has been transferred from Iraq to some countries, including Iran.
The Islamic Republic needs Dollars to stabilize its deteriorating economy hit hard by US sanctions imposed since 2018 after then-US President Donald Trump ditched Tehran's nuclear deal with six world powers. Iran's troubled currency has lost more than 30% of its value since nationwide protests following the death in police custody of a young 22-year-old Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, on September 16, 2022 that have further isolated the country.
For years, the clerical establishment has used front companies from Iraq to Turkey to obtain the dollars it needs for international transactions and funding its proxy militia forces across the Middle East.
Iranian Academic Mostafa Mehraeen said at a gathering of sociologists that Iran is facing an implosion and a civilizational revolution because of the people’s experience in the years before and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He called on officials to think about why the Islamic Republic has been turned into a fundamental evil during the past four decades.
Many Iranian academics and commentators have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of the authoritarian regime, its mismanagement of the state and deadly violations of human rights in recent weeks.
Meanwhile, Mehraeen criticized some of his peers and firebrand cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda for saying that no one was killed by security forces during the uprising and that the movement in Iran was motivated by sex and alcohol. He said those who have made those false comments are “ignorant.” Mehraeein further accused Iran’s rulers of dishonesty and said: “They have been lying for 40 years.”
He added that claims by officials about the protest movement being a riot by gunmen was also a lie.
Mehraeen questioned the Islamic Republic for regarding itself as a "sacred order" and said, "Yes, you were sacred only in the first year after the revolution."
The sociologist can well put himself in danger of getting arrested, as dozens of journalists, artists and writers are currently in prison.
In another sharp remark, Mehraeein spoke about IRGC Commander Hossein Salami ordering Iranians "Not to take to the streets from tomorrow!" Mehraeein addressed Salami: "Do you own the nation? Do you own their bodies? Do you own the streets? Who are you and what is your status?"
He also recalled a move by members of the Islamic parliament who asked the hardliner Judiciary to execute detained protesters and said: "You foolish members of the parliament, you are supposed to be representing the people. What do you mean by saying that they should be executed?" He reminded the regime: "A political system is not all about the noose and hanging. It is not all about police, batons and repression!"
Mehraeein pointed out that one of the characteristics of the current protests is that they do not seek to disrupt the social order. "The protesters love their country and do not wish to start a civil war. That is why the conflict in restive provinces never turn into civil war because the ethnic people in those provinces seriously avoid any armed confrontation with the security forces. They want a revolution without bloodshed," he said.
During the past weeks, the Iranian Sociological Association has been holding several conferences to discuss the implications and the outlook of the Iranian protests that have been rocking the country for four months.
In his discussion about the pathology of civil protests, Iranian sociologist Ali Jafari separated the notion of culture from the idea of fabricated culture. For instance, when women reach a consensus on an issue such as hijab, that is culture, but ideological governments fabricate their own ideas as some kind of culture and try to impose that on the people. This is what we call fabricated culture, he said, which damages the society's cultural and social order.
The Association's website also featured an article by jailed sociologist Saeed Madani, written before the current protests, which argued that some social movements start without pre-planning or coordination.
Iranian sociologists had warned for years about the chances of protests similar to the Woman, Life Freedom movement, suddenly flaring up, but the regime never believed them. Even now when they have realized the predictive nature of sociological studies, they still keep academics such as Madani in jail and continue interrogating them and asking: How come you knew this and we didn't.