In the days following the Iranian election, the state-run media have begun to write about the economic crises plaguing the country and how new president Ebrahim Raisi will be unable to fix the situation.
The Donyay-e Eghtesad newspaper wrote on Saturday: “There are also problems for the future president. The poor state of macroeconomic indicators, the closing of the demographic window, declining household incomes and social crises, social security and troubled pension funds, declining oil revenues, negative capital growth, and finally environmental challenges are all threats to the future government.”
While the Eghtesad-e Pouya wrote Tuesday that the country is seeing increased unemployment, along with many workers not having received their wages and bonuses for many months. This, the paper wrote, has “caused people’s tables to shrink”, especially as inflation reached 39% in 2020 and the poverty line topped 12 million tomans. The paper explained that even with salaries increasing by 40% this year, salaries still only cover about one-third of monthly expenses.
The Eghtesad-e Pouya continued by saying that prices are growing exponentially because the inflation rate is increasing and that this only makes poverty more visible through social crises, like a rise in suicides because of poverty and sex work through necessity.
The Iranian Resistance agreed that the rising inflation rate is having a massive impact on the people and explained that the main reason is banknote printing by the regime, which the mullahs do to make up their budget shortfall. This causes liquidity to increase above the domestic production rate.
The Frahikhtegan daily wrote earlier this month: “In our economy, even in years when the growth of the monetary base was low and reasonable, liquidity has increased. For example, the monetary statistics in 2014, in which the growth of the monetary base was 10%, but the growth of liquidity was 31% confirms this fact. Therefore, in the absence of budget deficits or sanctions, what has led to chronic inflation is the banking system.”
The Resistance said that the economic crises, along with all the other issues facing the people, have turned the country into a “powder keg” ready to explode because they do not trust the regime to fix their problems, especially because the mullahs are actually the cause of the issues. This is demonstrated by the nationwide boycott of the elections.
Even the state media are warning the regime about the backlash they will face from the people.
