Iranian newspaper: One year on, Raisi’s record ‘unacceptable’

Jomhouri-e Eslami, in an article on Saturday, slammed the Raisi administration for ‘underestimating the effects of sanctions’ re-imposed after former US president Donald Trump withdrew from Iran’s nuclear deal in 2018.

It wrote shielding people’s livelihood from sanctions and talks on restoring the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is a good slogan for election campaign trail, but lacks practical support.

The daily said the Raisi administration, after almost a year in office, has realized that the economic hardships in the country cannot be resolved without getting the embargos removed.

Jomhouri-e Eslami added, Iranian citizens are under crushing economic pressure as the marathon talks to revive the JCPOA have been dragging on without any significant improvement on the horizon.

It asked the Iranian president, a vocal critic of the nuclear agreement during his presidential campaign debates, to revert living standards to a year ago before his economic policies were implemented.

According to the International Monetary Fund, price hike in Iran has been rampant for years, over 30 percent annually every year since 2018.

The trend spiraled after President Raisi’s economic team decided to remove heavy subsidies on basic commodities and products, arguing the ‘surgery’ is painful but necessary for economic reforms.