Amidst Iran's economic woes, the chief commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says that the country’s recently deceased President "saved" the country from sanctions.
“[President Ebrahim Raisi] began reopening closed factories, visited deprived areas, and enhanced the status of the Islamic Republic internationally,” Hossein Salami said on Saturday.
On May 19, Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian were killed in a helicopter crash near the border of Azerbaijan.
Raisi, who began his tenure as president three years ago, faced significant criticism from observers regarding his economic team, with many calling for a cabinet reshuffle to address the issues. Raisi largely ignored these concerns, consistently asserting that the economy was on a growth trajectory.
In the weeks preceding Raisi's death, the criticism intensified further as many critics within Iran, including politicians, clerics, and academics, consistently voiced concerns about inefficiency, mismanagement, and negligence within his administration.
Among state figures, the former chairman of Iran’s central bank harshly criticized the hardliner government of Raisi for creating three-digit inflation of food prices and the impoverishment of tens of millions of people “while Iran has the biggest combined oil and gas reserves in the world.”
According to some insiders and critics in Iran who are generally permitted to comment publicly, Iran's short-term economic outlook is bleak. Since January, the national currency has devalued further, increasing inflation to around 50 percent.
"We can hear the sound of people's bones breaking," said former Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, emphasizing the severity of soaring prices. "The government must listen to the people's voices and address their grievances," he said.
One of the highest-ranking clerics in the theocracy, Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, also addressed Raisi on issues such as escalating food costs, declining purchasing power, and volatile exchange rates, asserting that “the government must address these challenges.”
Raisi was on a short flight back from the neighboring Republic of Azerbaijan last Sunday, when his helicopter went missing from radars. The crash site was located several hours later, along with bodies of Raisi and his minister for foreign affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
Speculations, often conspiratorial in nature, mushroomed immediately after the news of the crash, long before Raisi and other officials were confirmed dead. More conjecture emerged in the following hours and days, mostly pointing fingers at Mojtaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader’s eldest son who is widely believed to be the main contender to replace his father.
On Thursday evening local time, Iran’s general staff of the Armed Forces published a brief statement (with 6 articles) to present its ‘early’ finding and dissuade people from speculation.
“Some actions require more time for a definitive opinion...while some issues can be stated with certainty and are mentioned here,” the statement read, “no evidence of bullet impact or similar instances was observed in the remaining parts of the crashed helicopter…The crashed helicopter caught fire after hitting an altitude.”
This was perhaps the most significant part of the statement, attempting to convince the public that there was no outside attack or interference. It followed another broad remark conveying the same message: “The helicopter continued its pre-planned route and did not deviate from the designated flight path,” implying that the crash was indeed an accident, but offering no reasons for it –a technical problem, for instance, or human error.
The statement was met with skepticism or mockery. Lack of detail, or a rough storyline, at least, raised many more questions that it answered.
“The statement does not address any of the uncertainties surrounding the crash of Raisi’s helicopter,” Iranian journalist and commentator Jamshid Barzegar told Iran International. “All it does is to rid [Iran’s] armed forces of the little credibility that they had, [especially if] you put it alongside the staggering lack of coordination that was displayed at Raisi’s funeral.”
This sentiment was echoed by other analysts and some ordinary Iranians on social media, who judged the statement from ‘not much to offer’ to ‘all lies’, even though it stated clearly that large amounts of evidence had been gathered but “more time is needed to examine some parts and documents.”
Further statements, even with more evidence and detail, are likely to fail to convince ordinary Iranians, many of whom find it hard to trust official announcements –and are often actively looking for inconsistencies or ‘gaffes’ that would discredit the narrative.
This is partly at least due to the Islamic Republic’s long history of deceit which has all but completely eroded trust between the people and the state. And partly a backlash to the regime’s persistent dissemination of its own message and violent suppression of alternative ideas.
One such instance was the downing of a Ukrainian airliner in January 2020, when two missiles fired by the Revolutionary Guard air defense units around Tehran brought down the plane with 176 people on board. All perished in the crash. For three days, military and security officials denied any involvement and argued that it was a technical accident, until videos emerged showing the missiles hitting the plane.
“People are asked to ignore non-expert opinions based on speculations without accurate knowledge of the realities of the scene, or sometimes guided by foreign media in cyberspace and other platforms,” the statement concluded.