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Jamshid Chalangi:
In tonight’s edition of Behind the Headlines we look at the continued strike by Iran’s lorry drivers and the flight of capital from the country by its top officials, as European and Russian companies begin to exit the Iranian markets.
Our guests tonight to discuss these topics are the Iran-based journalist Navid Jamshidi and speaking to us from Paris Jamshid Assadi.
Navid Jamshidi:
The strike by Iran’s lorry drivers is an unprecedented event in the recent history of Iran. The interesting thing about their strike is that our lorry drivers are among some of the most hardworking and dedicated people and one can see these characteristics in their protest action.
The strike apparently began as an economic protest against the rising petrol prices but it has gradually become a political and an anti-regime protest.
Jamshid Assadi:
There is no doubt that this strike is related to the regime’s financial corruption and mismanagement of the economy and that the lorry drivers’ purchasing power has been depleted while their earnings have remained static.
The government just wants to play with figures in Iran and claim that the inflation has come under its control.
Further more, the price of fuel and spare parts have increased by many folds in a sign of the involvement of the regime’s officials in the black markets who also set the rates for the delivery of goods by these lorries. The government does not have any solution to this strike, simply because it does not have any budget to offer to the strikers.
Navid Jamshidi:
Today in Iran every single social or economic issue turns into a crisis for the regime. It is true that the regime does have its own think tanks and advisory groups. But for more than thirty years the only response that they have offered to people’s demands and protests has been to repress them and crack down on protestors.
The Iranian people have reached the conclusion that this regime does not have any sound solution or plan to solve their burning problems and all that the regime officials are interested in is to sort out their own factional fighting. They cannot even reach a solution within their own ranks, let alone find solutions to the people’s problems.
Jamshid Assadi:
The Iranian economy is entirely based on the oil revenues and even that source of income for the country is now under heavy stress and sanctions. The Iranian people have lost all their hope in depending on this regime for solving their problems and do not really distinguish between Ahmadinejad and Rouhani.
Iran’s economic system is mostly state-run and when you talk about the state in Iran you are talking about the Revolutionary Guard, which controls more than 90 percent of the country’s ports of entry.
It is an economic system that is run through cronyism and corruption, backed by criminality and the power of an armed enterprise.
Jamshid Chalangi:
Stay with us for this edition of Behind the Headlines and share it with your family and friends.
