Iran’s Raisi Sacks Head Of Only Statistical Reporting Center
President Ebrahim Raisi has sacked the head of Iran's Statistics Center and the Social Security Organization, as hardliners purge officials outside their circle.
President Ebrahim Raisi has sacked the head of Iran's Statistics Center and the Social Security Organization, as hardliners purge officials outside their circle.
Javad Hossein-Zadeh was removed from his position as the head of the only government institution issuing statistics on the struggling economy, which somewhat differed from frequent rosy claims and predictions by the president and his immediate aides. He was replaced by Daryush Abouhamzeh, who will serve as the interim head for the moment.
Although Iran's Statistics Center is administered and funded by the government and operates under the umbrella of Planning and Budget Organization, it maintained a veneer of credibility as one of the very scarce sources of data – both economic and social.
The central bank and the ministry of the economy stopped issuing regular economic data in 2019 as US sanctions imposed the previous year pushed an already struggling economy into a deep recession.
In the absence of credible data by the Central Bank of Iran about the inflation rates, Iran's Statistics Center became the primary official entity announcing these figures. Government officials and sometimes the central bank announced lower inflation figures prices for consumer goods.
Abouhamzeh, who was appointed as the economic deputy of the Planning and Budget Organization two months ago, is apparently a graduate of Tehran and Sharif universities in economics. He previously served as a deputy at the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare in 2021.
In that position he was not always honest with official statistics. Once he famously put the poverty line in Iran so way off that his video went viral at the time. Following reactions, it was announced that Abouhamzeh’s data were at least two years old.
An intriguing development surrounding the Iran Statistics Center is that its official website has remained inaccessible for the past three days without any official explanation.
Also on Monday, reformist daily Etemad said that the head of the Social Security Organization was "dismissed," citing informed sources. Mirhashem Mosavi was reportedly replaced by one of his deputies. The public relations department of the organization has denied the news.
Reports of recent changes in leadership positions of organizations in charge of data about Iran may further raise concerns about the accuracy and transparency of economic indicators in the country.
Last week, lawmaker Gholamreza Nouri Ghezeljeh insisted that the annual inflation rate in Iran is 120 percent, not even 60 or 70 percent as various politicians and academics cite, adding that lower inflation figures close to 40 percent presented by some officials, who claim they have controlled rising prices, is the product of their imagination.
The Iranian government claims to have controlled the inflation rate at about 40 percent. However, as Ghezeljeh noted, "Playing with figures will not solve the problem of Iran's economy. High inflation cannot be concealed from the people as they find out about it when they purchase goods in their everyday life "
The rial’s catastrophic drop tells the story of inflation in Iran. The currency has lost its value 13-fold since 2018. Price inflation is highest in the food sector, which even last year was estimated to have been between 70-100 percent. The country must import a large part of its food, animal feed, medicines, raw materials, and finished goods it needs. As the local currency loses value on the backdrop of international isolation over the regime’s policies, imports become more expensive and higher prices must be passed on to consumers.
Although large-scale anti-regime protests in 2022 and 2023 were driven by social and political oppression, but widespread deprivation also fuels hopelessness among young people.
Ruling hardliners are increasingly pushing members of other camps out of the political arena, and this partly explains purge of officials.
However last week, prominent economist Mehdi Pazouki told Didban Iran website that government officials have humiliated the nation in the name of their revolutionary approach. Pazouki said, in an unprecedented and daring statement, "One of Khomeini's mistakes was allowing clerics to intervene in the country's social and executive affairs."
He was referring to the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who after the 1979 revolution gradually expelled independent-minded people from the government and increasingly relied on clerics that he knew had no experience in running a country.
Pazouki added that Iranian clerics can do their biggest service to Islam by migrating back to the seminaries. He further criticized officials for their lack of discipline in foreign relations and administrative affairs and said that as a result of government policies, banking in Iran lags behind other countries by at least 40 years.
Ahmad Alirezabeigi, a member of the Iranian parliament who is known for disclosing a major bribery case involving at least 75 other lawmakers and a former Industry Minister, accused officials of evading their responsibility and adding insult to injury by making statements that blame the people for the government's shortcomings.
He further accused state officials of mismanaging resources and failing to provide the conditions for the minimum means of livelihood. Alirezabeigi added that government policies stifle investments and make the economy more dependent on state enterprises.
While the country is suffering from energy and water shortage, the government creates obstacles for investment in these areas. It wants to do everything by itself but is incapable of completing any project.
This approach will inevitably lead to capital flight from the country, and add to public discontent.
Criticizing the government's economic policies, economist Pazouki highlighted the fact that Iran’s currency has lost its value 12-fold in five years, bringing inflation and misery to the people. He argued that government foreign and domestic policies have stifled an export-oriented economy.
As a result, the government is spending more than its income leading to a huge budget deficit. "The main problem is in our governance. Our economy is hostage to our pending political decisions," he said, adding that although there are so many capable individuals in Iran, most current officials are much less qualified than former statesmen."
As an example, he said: "Just compare the current foreign minister to his predecessor, and you will find out that we have gone back by at least 40 years.
Expounding on the causes of Iran's rising inflation, Pazouki said: "Last year, Iraq sold $120 billion of oil while Iran's oil export was less than a quarter of that, and we still have not repatriated the money for the oil we have sold." He added: "We are likely to have even more problems if we refuse to come to terms with the world and follow a reasonable foreign policy," referring to the nuclear dispute with the West and crippling US sanctions.
In another developing, offering a way out of the problem, political commentator Abbas Abdi suggested that the government should find out about the true public mood and what ordinary people say.
“Send your agents to mingle with the people on the buses, subways, in the bazaar and shopping centers to talk with citizens and record what they say about their problems and needs.”
Abdi likened the perception of officials about the problems of ordinary folks to the elephant in the darkroom analogy in which everyone has a different perception of the elephant. Abdi suggested: "Turn the lights on and see the elephant!"
At the same time many acknowledge that elections are meaningless in Iran as long as the hardliner Guardian Council determines who should run for office.
The media say less than eight months before the elections, the conservatives have already started campaigning while there is no sign of election-related activities among the reformists.
Several reformist figures have pointed out that considering the precedence set during the latest elections in Iran in 2020 and 2021, no well-known reformist figures will be allowed to run. Some including pundit Saeed Hajjarian have even called for boycotting the elections.
Moderate political analyst Gholamali Rajaee has told conservative website Nameh News that "No decision has been made yet to boycott the elections, but perhaps non-participation will be a choice for voters." He explained that "If reformist voters cannot find the right likeminded candidates, they may decide not to take part in the election all together."
But the issue goes much farther than reformist voters. Both in 2020 and 2021 when mostly hardliners were approved to run, vast segments of the population stayed home, delivering two of the lowest voter turnouts in Islamic Republic’s history.
According to Nameh News, some Iranian conservatives believe that the reformist camp has been radicalized after the election of Azar Mansoori in June as the leader of the Reform Front, an umbrella organization that exercises influence among reformist groups and parties.
Rajaee said that the reformists might come to the conclusion that their candidates will not be allowed by the Guardian Council to run for the election. "When they do not have anyone to elect, naturally, they conclude that their participation will be useless," he said, adding that some of the conservative leaders expect reformists to take part in the election and accept to acknowledge that they have lost the election to conservatives. That is not logical, he said.
"If the reformists do not accept such a deal, then the conservatives brand them as boycotters and the advocates of regime change. They have said that before, and the may say it again," Rajaee argued.
Meanwhile, conservative activist Gholamali Jafarzadeh Imenabadi said that "If the reformists actively take part in the election, the conservatives will have no choice other than forging coalitions to stand against them."
Stressing that the conservatives have already began campaigning, Imanabadi said that some of their leaders have started visits to provinces to organize likeminded political groups ahead of the elections. However, he pointed out that the conservatives might find it hard to create some kind of accord among various groups. Imenabadi added that there are already several conservative and hardliner coalitions with their own separate agendas and some of them do not realize the need to come to some sort of agreement with others.
"They can still further their agenda if reformists and moderate groups do not enter the elections in an organized way. But if they do, then the conservatives will have no choice other than forming strong coalitions.
Along the same lines, in an interview with Nameh News, Hamid Reza Taraqqi, an Islamic Coalition Party member spoke about former Majles Speaker Ali Larijani's probable candidacy and said: "If he is serious about nominating himself he should update his views about revolutionary behavior and values and get ready for a new judgment of his merits by conservative voters and politicians.
Many conservatives have said earlier that Larijani does not have a voters’ base and first of all he needs to decide who he wants to represent, the reformists, the moderates or the conservatives. Larijani was a conservative politician throughout his career, but he got close to moderates during the presidency of Hassan Rouhani (2013 – 2021), and his candidacy was rejected by the Guardian Council for the 2021 presidential election.