It has been two years since the Iranian regime’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, appointed Ebrahim Raisi as president in a bid to “consolidate power” in his system in the face of a restive society.
Yet, the facts on the ground and some aspects of them acknowledged by the regime’s officials and tightly controlled state media indicate the regime’s absolute bankruptcy and the country’s financial calamity.
On June 2, the regime’s Planning and Budget Organization acknowledged that Raisi’s government has 11.4 quadrillion rials ($225.4 million) debt to the country’s Central Bank and state companies. Having such a huge debt to the Central Bank means that Raisi’s government has been resorting to banknote printing to compensate for its budget deficit. In February 2023, Abdolnasser Hemmati, the former Central Bank Chief, acknowledged that Raisi’s government had printed 12.4 quadrillion rials worth of banknotes in “just nine months.”
On May 21, Rahim Mombini, Deputy Head of the Planning and Budget Organization, shockingly admitted that Raisi’s government has a “7.9 quadrillion rials” budget deficit. Meanwhile, in his 2022-2023 budget law, Raisi claimed that his government has a 4.6 quadrillion rials deficit, which the regime’s insiders called out at the time.
On May 11, Mehdi Ghazanfari, the chairman of the National Development Fund, acknowledged that Khamenei and Raisi had emptied the National Development Fund, and only $10 billion remained from “a $150 billion accumulated fund”.
On May 1, Sajad Padam, then head of Iran’s Social Security Organization’s Insurance Section, acknowledged that “We will reach a point soon to sell Qeshm and Kish Islands to pay retirees’ pensions. We are in such a critical situation that if we sell three million barrels of oil daily and earn its full revenue by evading sanctions, we cannot solve the retirees’ problems.”
The country’s economic meltdown and the prospect of another round of protests by the impoverished people have increased the infightings within the so-called “consolidated system.” Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the parliament speaker, recently blamed the financial crisis on Raisi’s government, saying that “Executive officials and managers squander $104 billion annually” that “no one can trace it.”
In a nutshell, the regime is engulfed by social and economic crises and is bereft of any solutions for them. Khamenei must either accept to decrease his regime’s malign activities to have sanctions lifted by world powers or dig his hands deeper into people’s pockets.
Stopping his regime’s illicit activities, such as the export of terrorism and advancing the nuclear weapons program, endangers Khamenei’s grip on power. Thus, he prefers to further plunder Iranians, despite its severe consequences and the possibility of a social revolt.
Recently, there have been rumors about increasing fuel prices, and many regime insiders warn about the “bitter experience” of the November 2019 nationwide uprising that rattled the clerical regime’s foundations.
Khamenei had high hopes for a “Young and Hezbollahi” government and a “consolidated system” to save his crisis-riddled regime, but the nationwide uprising that erupted in September disrupted his plan. This, coupled with the role of the country’s organized opposition in mobilizing Iranians and the world
community against the regime, poses an existential threat to the ruling theocracy.
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