The people of Iran are under massive economic pressure along with the Covid-19 crisis. They hear their bones crushing under this pressure. Yet, mullahs’ regime takes no action to help the society.
According to the state-run media on Saturday, people have turned to purchase chicken wings and gizzard due to poultry’s expensiveness.
Mehdi Yousef-Khani, president of the Poultry and Fish Traders Association, acknowledged: “With the rising poultry prices in the last 20 days, the usage of chicken gizzard, liver and wings has tripled. Most people are unable to purchase chicken.” (ILNA news agency, November 27, 2020)
Despite the bogus claims of the regime’s president, Hassan Rouhani, of controlling the rising prices, the Tsunami of soaring prices has now reached people’s most essential food items.
The situation has reached a point that the mullahs’ Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, acknowledged that Covid-19 and economic problems have “created serious barriers for people’s livelihood.” All the while, Khamenei, as the highest regime’s authority, is the first person to blame for covering up Covid-19 and destroying Iran’s economy.
Despite Khamenei and Rouhani try to blame the high-prices on other parties and refuse to offer a real solution, they have a direct role in increasing the prices of goods.
“The government has licensed the market to increase the prices of 20 goods. From November 21, the increase in the price of milk, ten types of dairy products, butter, four products in the oil group, and four products in the livestock input group has started,” wrote state-run Tasnim news agency.
“The price of chicken has jumped to 355000 rials per kilogram, the shop windows are full, but there are no buyers, people say we do not know when this price increase will stop?” wrote Fars News agency, an outlet linked to the IRGC.
Why does the regime continue to increase prices?
The major Iran protests in November 2019 started due to the sudden fuel price-hike. The November uprising pushed the regime to the edge of downfall and has become mullahs’ nightmare. Despite the bitter experience of November 2019, the regime continues increasing prices, but why?
On the one hand, the regime desperately needs to raise prices to cover its astronomical budget deficit, but on the other hand, it is deeply concerned about the social response.
To avoid another uprising, the Iranian regime has been trying to increase the prices of goods secretly. The regime has used this method for years to increase water prices, electricity, gas, telephones, and more recently for bread prices.
By reducing the quota of government flour for bakeries, the regime forces them to buy flour from the open market, which is three times higher. Thus, the regime increased the price of bread without officially announcing it. When people protested, the regime officially increased the price of bread by 20 to 30 percent.
When Khamenei speaks of the people’s livelihood, although he is shedding crocodile tears for people, he is deeply concerned about possible social outrage.
So, if the high-prices are so dangerous for Khamenei and his regime, why do they not act to control it? Instead, it is intensifying steadily and rapidly.
During his speech on November 24, Khamenei said there is no explanation for these high-prices.
There is only one reason behind all these constant waves of rising prices and people’s hardships. That is the regime’s institutionalized corruption and mismanagement of the economy, which has destroyed Iran’s economic infrastructure.
In other words, the real problem of Iran’s economy and the only barrier to people’s livelihood is the regime itself, which must be removed.