{"id":8939,"date":"2021-04-01T16:14:12","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T13:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/?p=8939"},"modified":"2021-04-06T18:13:56","modified_gmt":"2021-04-06T15:13:56","slug":"khameneis-optimistic-nowruz-speech-covers-up-harsh-domestic-realities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/monitoring-and-translation\/reports\/khameneis-optimistic-nowruz-speech-covers-up-harsh-domestic-realities\/","title":{"rendered":"Khamenei\u2019s Optimistic Nowruz Speech Covers Up Harsh Domestic Realities"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delivered a speech on Nowruz. The aim was to boost public morale and confidence in Iran\u2019s  faltering economy.  For the past 15 years<\/a>, at the start of each Iranian new year, Khamenei  has presented lofty economic goals to be targeted during the course of the year.  The goals are wrapped up in appealing slogans.  In Khamenei\u2019s annual  televised Nowruz speech, he mentioned that  this year<\/a> will be one of \u201cproduction, support, and removal of barriers.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khamenei stated that he focused on  \u201cproduction<\/a>,\u201d in his speech even though he   believed that his call for   a \u201cyear of production leap\u201d  was met last year.  Thus, according to him,  Iran\u2019s production leap last year was satisfactory but insufficient because of poor economic planning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it seems like Khamenei\u2019s speech covers up some harsh domestic realities.  Iran\u2019s economy came close to  collapsing last year due to corruption, economic mismanagement, and harsh US-led sanctions. Still, Khamenei\u2019s Nowruz speech  claimed that  Iran was better off now compared to when it signed the nuclear deal with global powers in 2015.  The deal briefly lifted some sanctions imposed  on Iran, but they were reinstated by the Trump administration in 2018, which begs the question of how Iran\u2019s economy could be in a better state under sanctions?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his speech, Khamenei  did not discuss any controversial subjects.  Instead, he compared the beginning of a new century<\/a> on Iran\u2019s calendar with where  the country was 100 years ago as an under-developed nation, to get the message across that the future was indeed very promising. To make his point that Iran\u2019s economy needed \u201csupport.\u201d Khamenei claimed that a surge in production was possible with more investments<\/a>, along with Iran\u2019s national currency stabilizing and a boost in public confidence as well as through the provision of social welfare programs to the most needy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khamenei mentioned  that the World Bank (WB) said  that Iran is the 18th<\/sup> largest economy<\/a> in the world.  However, the WB did not state that and his remark proved untrue. At the same time, in terms of economic performance, the WB  placed Iran 128th from a list of 190 countries. It  believes that Iran  is unable to generate employment, and  its economy contracted by 6.8 percent<\/a> in 2019. Figures also show that last year, Iran experienced its third consecutive year of negative growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Considering these harsh economic realities, Khamenei deliberately ignored in his Nowruz speech a long list of day-to-day challenges that must be addressed to boost  production in Iran. His optimistic economic forecast  intended to boost public confidence in the government\u2019s ability to perform and possibly to encourage the Iranian people  who are losing hope to vote in the upcoming  presidential elections scheduled to be held in the summer. Not surprisingly, Khamenei\u2019s  Nowruz speech focused mainly  on the upcoming presidential race. Khamenei expressed hope that a new president<\/a> will revitalize  the economy, introduce new steps to tackle corruption,  and build a strong central government<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not clear how Khamenei\u2019s call for the \u201cremoval of barriers\u201d will be met this year. In the first nine months of last year, for example, 37 million Iranians<\/a> lived on social welfare handouts, which only added $1.5 daily to their pockets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While  the  most vulnerable economic groups in Iran had their salaries hiked  by 39 percent in the new year, the country\u2019s labor rights activists say they continue to live under the poverty line<\/a> due to high inflation rates. Last year, the International Monetary Fund<\/a> placed inflation rates in Iran at 34.2 percent, while most other figures<\/a> say it is around 40 percent. A WB Iran\u2019s overview page says inflation stood at 48<\/a> percent in February 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Analysts believe that Khamenei  is misleading the  Iranian people by continuing to uphold his tradition to  . His slogan calling  for a leap in production last year as Iran battled with a major health pandemic was misleading,  to say the least. A year earlier, Khamenei labeled Nowruz a time for production<\/a> to flourish despite the Trump administration\u2019s  Iran. Later, Khamenei  claimed that Iran experienced a production surge despite the maximum pressure campaign,  and the outbreak of  anti-government and anti-poverty protests across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khamenei via his speech could also be attempting to hide the country\u2019s dim economic prospects in the coming year.  If this is the case, then Khamenei\u2019s optimistic Nowruz slogan for this year is nothing but a deliberate attempt to mislead the Iranian people once again.  It also projects  economic continuity and stability even if they do  not really exist in Iran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei delivered a speech on Nowruz. The aim was to boost public morale and confidence in Iran\u2019s faltering economy. For the past 15 years, at the start of each Iranian new year, Khamenei has presented lofty economic goals to be targeted during the course of the year. The goals are wrapped up in appealing slogans. In Khamenei\u2019s annual televised Nowruz speech, he mentioned that this year will be one of \u201cproduction, support, and removal of barriers.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":8940,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1637,386,5771],"class_list":["post-8939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports","tag-iran-in-a-week","tag-khamenei","tag-nowruz-speech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8939"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8957,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8939\/revisions\/8957"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}