The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran), reported that today, Iran’s economy is controlled by what has become known as the “Power and Wealth Mafia,” a network of regime institutions and their affiliates who have made a fortune at the expense of the Iranian people. Although the mafia remains in privilege, the majority of Iran’s people are impoverished, a circumstance that has only gotten worse after the Covid-19 outbreak and the regime’s indifference to the pandemic’s effect on people’s lives and the country’s economy.
The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (PMOI / MEK Iran), reported that the coronavirus death toll in 541 cities surpasses 286,200.
“While according to the Central Bank, the country’s per-capita income in 2019 decreased by nearly 33 percent in comparison to 2011, with the outbreak of the Covid-19 in 2020, the country’s economy faced a new shock,” the Tasnim news agency published on 19 January.
All optimistic predictions are contingent on the Iranian regime reaching a consensus with world powers over its nuclear program. Otherwise, the economy would be in a state of turmoil, with economic growth likely to be close to zero, if not negative. The Parliamentary Research Center, which published a study on 5 May that explained this grim prognosis:
“Recommendation to the expansion budget to get out of the recession has nothing to do with the Iranian economy’s current situation. Because the risk of hyperinflation is not so far, and if the 2021 budget is based on unrealistic sources, the country’s economy will face high inflation and more instability in various markets.”
The regime’s factions also accuse one another of foreign sanctions in their feuds.
“Sanctions against Iran were able to show the devastating effects of previous irrational and populist policies, and this was the most important achievement of these sanctions. But will we learn from this experience? Unfortunately, the answer is no,” Abdi went on to say.
The Ebtekar daily reported on 15 May, “to better express the meaning, we can examine some economic numbers and data: First: Iran’s economic growth in the last 10 years has averaged zero percent! Anywhere else in the world, this statement would cause a great deal of concern and would be the basis for fundamental changes in the approach of economic policymakers, but many in Iran today do not see it. The lack of economic growth in the past 10-year period is not an alarm but a danger in itself.”
“The people are tired and angry of the current situation, their empty tables, and the inefficiency and corruption of the rulers of the Islamic Republic, and want a great change in the style of governing.”
Saeed Mohammad, the former commander of the Khatamal Anbiya Construction Headquarters, the Revolutionary Guards’ largest economic holding, wrote in a letter to all candidates on 5 May.
“People are tired of factionalism, hypocrisy, discrimination, and injustice of political and economic aristocracy, of unkept promises, and of hearing the daily news of corruption cases,” Mohammad wrote in the letter.
While Mohammad’s words are noteworthy, the fact that he has nominated himself for president, despite his long history of corruption, says a lot about the sorts of people who want to run the country.
Naturally, the people would react to all of this oppression and inefficiency in their own unique way, by boycotting the regime’s elections and voting with their demonstrations and uprisings.
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