Nearly Half Of Young People Want To Leave Iran - Poll
Almost half of Iranian youth want to leave the country amid pessimism about their future, a recent opinion survey conducted from abroad shows.
Almost half of Iranian youth want to leave the country amid pessimism about their future, a recent opinion survey conducted from abroad shows.
Asked if they would go and live in a foreign country given the chance; 49 percent of people aged 18-29 said yes. The percentage among the general population was fully one-third.
Statis Consulting, a US based opinion research outfit focusing on Iran, conducted the poll among 1,246 Iranian residents aged 18 and older in July.
“Based on the sample, there is a 95 percent confidence that the margin of sampling error is within ± 2.7 percentage points,” Stasis said.
Iran’s economic situation has drastically deteriorated since former President Donald Trump abandoned the 2015 nuclear agreement with Iran (JCPOA) and imposed crippling sanctions. But since the election of ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi as president in 2021, lifestyle pressures have also increased, with harsher enforcement of Islamic rules.
Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed responded affirmatively when asked if“Iranian youth do not see prosperity in their future.” Only 20 percent disagreed with the statement.
Fifty-three percent of respondents said that “government officials restrict the liberties of Iranian youth by interfering in their lifestyle. This number is even worse among young people aged 18 to 29; sixty-four percent believe this statement to be true.”
Since early June, the government has been cracking down on forced hijab violators, with enforcing tougher restrictions. Thousands have been stopped on the streets by ‘morality police’ and many have been detained and fined. Security forces arrested many women who took part in an anti-hijab civil disobedience action on July 12, when many women came to the streets with no headscarves.
Among the reasons why Iranians have left the country in recent years, the overall state of the economy is the main factor, according to the survey. The economy “was mentioned by fifty-seven percent of respondents, followed by political or religious freedom (twenty-six percent), and hope for a better life (twenty-five percent). Only five percent mentioned looking for higher education is the main reason for Iranians leaving the country.”
Fifty-five percent of respondents did not show confidence in President Raisi regarding issues that matter to young people. Only 35 percent believe that problems facing the youth are among Raisi’s priorities.
“Among young people aged 18 to 29, sixty-five percent say issues concerning young people are not Raisi’s priority. Only twenty-seven percent completely or somewhat agree. Moreover, most Iranians do not believe that President’s Raisi can boost economic opportunities for Iranian youth (fifty-nine percent),” Stasis reported.
The government and parliament dominated by hardliners loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have dragged out negotiation with the United States to revive the nuclear agreement for more than a year. Sanctions have stayed in place and the economic crisis has deepened.
Overall inflation stands at 54 percent and food prices have risen by more than 100 percent since Raisi took office last August, according to official figures.
Statis also concluded that “those who reside in urban centers and who hold a college degree are more likely to say that they would prefer to leave Iran than Iranians who live in rural communities and who do not hold college degrees. Forty-three percent of Iranians who have a college degree say they would prefer to live in a foreign country.”
Interestingly, Germany is the top choice (16%) for those who want to leave, followed closely by Canada (15%) and the United States (14%).
In a conference on Monday about ways to revive Lake Urmia (Orumiyeh), near Western Azerbaijan Province capital of the same name, Isa Kalantari highlighted that the lake has lost 95 percent of its water over the past three decades, despite government claims that it has appropriated hundreds of millions of dollars to prevent the environmental disaster.
If the lake is not restored, it will have security consequences, and no government can survive in the country because it cannot withstand the flood of migration of millions of people who reside near it, he said.
Kalantari said that the country's experts had warned about the drying up of this lake since the mid-1990s, but the authorities ignored the warnings.
Considering the fact that it has 13 billion tons of salt in its bed, if the lake dries up completely, the city of Tabriz should be evacuated, he elaborated, adding that even if this evacuation is possible, it will cost at least one trillion US dollars.
“The residents of the neighboring provinces will be forced to migrate; winters will be at least 3-4 degrees colder and summers 3-4 degrees hotter, which will disrupt the entire ecology of the region," he noted.
At its greatest extent, Urmia was the largest lake in the Middle East and sixth largest salt lake in the world, with an original surface area of 5,200 square kilometers in the 1970s, or 2,000 square miles. It had shrunk to 700 sq km by 2013. The lake began shrinking in the 1980s due to water mismanagement and climate change.
In an interview with Etemad Onlinein Tehran Safari, Deputy Foreign Minister for Economic Affairs explained that Iran relies on Russia for importing essential commodities and in return exports cement to Russia. "We lend our export capability to Russia," he said, adding that "Our trade volume with Russia is $5 billon and we want to increase it to $10 billion."
Safari said Russia is a powerful country in oil and gas and can invest in Iran in the same areas while also transferring technology to Iran. He added that "Iran can also swap Russia's gas and oil with other countries. We get gas from one country and sell it to another country and make some profit. This is our economic and geopolitical potential."
Lately, Iranian officials have spoken about gas swap with Russia. Receiving natural gas and selling it to neighboring countries. But in reality, only Iraq is need of gas, but it is not a customer of Russia.
Safari, who has studied electronic engineering and telecommunications at George Washington University is introduced by Iranian media as a Russia expert. The Etemad Online reporter characterized him as a man with a conservative character who refused to remove his face mask during the interview.
Meanwhile, Safari, a former Iranian ambassador to Russia and China, told Etemad Online that Iran has signed barter trade contracts with up to ten countries despite US sanctions, however, he declined to name those countries. Safari added that barter trade is Iran's solution to circumvent the sanctions.
He has been a member of Iran's nuclear negotiators team since the 2010s when ultraconservative politician Saeed Jalili was in charge of the negotiations. During the interview, says the reporter, he declined to share many information points, fearing that "the other side might take advantage."
Safari told Etemad Online that "sanctions do not mean death and there are many ways to nullify them." However, his only solution was barter trade. He said that despite the sanctions there are many ways to further international trade although sanctions mainly affect international banking. Asked what those ways were, Safari once again referred to barter.
He disagreed with Etemad Online that barter trade will inevitably increase the cost of transactions. While this can be true in normal circumstances, Iran faces sanctions and countries that agree to barter trade with Tehran would use it as leverage to enhance their profits. Barter also deprives the country of foreign currency it can invest for economic growth.
Prominent economic journalist Maryam Shokrani wrote in a series of tweets on Sunday, August 14, that "Russia has quoted a price ten times higher than usual for work on projects in Iran." She quoted the Transportation and Logistics Confederation as saying that "Iran is about to conclude a contract with Russia for constructing a railway between Garmsar and Inceborun.”
The reporter also quoted Meysam Lajevardi, a rail transport expert, as saying that a German company has offered a contract at one tenth of that amount for the same project."
Shjokrani added that Russia had offered no bank guarantee to Iran for that contract and wanted to bring 80 percent of the personnel needed for the project from Russia. She added that the government of President Hassan Rouhani had accepted those unlawful conditions and it appears that the Raisi administration has also submitted to the same conditions.
Expediency Council member Mohammad Javad Bahonar said in an interview on Didban Iran website on Sunday, August 14, that it is normal for 30 percent of voters not to show up at the polls, as they might think their participation may not make a difference, but 49 percent was a bad record, and an indications that all doors must be opened for political activity in Iran.
Meanwhile, Bahonar criticized the current Iranian government, which is the outcome of the low-turnout election in 2021, for continuing to make promises although it knows it does not have the capability to fulfil them. Also, in an apparent criticism directed at President Ebrahim Raisi's frequent provincial visits, Bahonar said the president should not think that visiting various regions and expressing sympathy with the underprivileged will solve his problems.
According to Didban Iran, several members of the parliament have also criticized Raisi for his provincial visits and warned that he could be accused of populism. They warned that when the promises made during these visits remain unmet, people will no longer believe what the government says in other instances.
Amid a worsening economic situation since his election, Raisi has made a big show of his provincial visits and has advertised the effort on government media as an important accomplishment. Another public relations tactic has been blaming the economic crisis on his predecessor, while publishing sometimes unsubstantiated and contradictory figures on the economy.
On Sunday, lawmaker Sodayf Badri, said at the parliament that the people are under economic pressure and they no longer trust the lawmakers. Some even accuse the parliament of undermining the people's interests to protect the government, he said.
Explaining the country's economic situation, Bahonar said, "We consume 300 billion euros worth of energy in Iran every year. Consuming energy should eitherlead to welfare or to increasing production. But none of these happen in Iran. We might be able to save 30 percent of this energy without doing any harm to the people's welfare. This 30 percent saving means 100 billion euros can be added to the economy."
Although the figure cited by Bahonar seems exceedingly exaggerated, Iran does provide around 50-60 billion dollars in energy subsidy to citizens, by selling gasoline, natural gas and electricity extremely cheap.
Bahonar reiterated his idea about a bicameral parliament in Iran, a system in which one of the houses would exclusively prioritizes national interests. Currently, he said, various occupational and ethnic groups follow their interests at the Majles.
He regretted that Iran as a country that used to sell $100 billions of oil every year, now has $15 billion per annum through circumventing US sanctions and by selling oil under the counter. “Just imagine that the income of a country with a population of 80 million has dropped from $100 billion to $15 billion.” All the country's economic problems are due to the fact that the government spends 1.5 times the amount of its income. At the same time, we are a 100 billion Euro country that wishes to live like a 500-billion-euro country.
Bahonar criticized the way the government is managing the affairs of the country. He said: "Japan with a population of 160 million has 600 thousands government employees, while Iran has a population of 80 millions and 4 million government employees.