Will Iran’s increasing economic disparity threaten the regime?
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Roshan Amiri
- . March 6, 2023
- . Update: March 7, 2023 11:08 pm
Widespread demonstrations will bring the country to a standstill once again as long as the Iranian leaders continue to dodge their people’s concerns associated with the economy.
Nearly 70% of the population is living below the poverty line, according to recent figures from the regime’s own Interior Ministry. The increasing gap between the ordinary people and the privileged few at the top is a significant threat to the survival of the theocratic establishment.
Nevertheless, as long as revenues from the export of natural resources are entering the treasury, the exacerbating economy is not fundamentally affecting the living standards of the authorities or those who show loyalty.
While the absolute poverty line used to be around 10 million tomans in the past, recent high prices and lack of salary increases have raised it to 12 million tomans, professor Ebrahim Razzaghi from Tehran University told Iranian newspaper Aftab News.
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Numerous shocking figures arise when comparing the situation of the overwhelming majority of ordinary people with that of officials. For instance, the unelected leader of the regime, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, has a financial empire worth about $200 billion.
The plummeting value of Iran’s currency is one of the major issues ordinary people currently face. It dropped to 600,000 rials to the dollar last week for the first time in the history of the regime. All this is happening while inflation (which reached an annual rate of 53.4% in January – up from 41.4% a couple of years back – and the unemployment rate are at record highs.
Harvard-educated Iranian-American political scientist Dr Majid Rafizadeh has raised concerns over ingrained corruption in Iran’s political and financial institutions, and the hemorrhaging of the country’s wealth on militias, terror groups, and proxies across the region – adding nepotism, economic mismanagement, and a lack of government transparency are also among the core reasons for the growing economic disparity.
