Iranian Parliament Summons President as Economy Sputters
Iranians have been feeling the
crunch of foreign sanctions on the country’s economy. Prices
for gold
and American dollars are way up.
Reuters reports food shortages and word of mouth carries
stories of the frantic stockpiling of meat, rice, and other
staples. According to
one Iranian service employee, “We know they want to pressure us
so we rise against our government, but we are not in a position to
do that.” The New York Times reports:
Ordinary Iranians complain that the sanctions are hurting them,
while those at the top are unscathed, or even benefit. Many wealthy
Iranians made huge profits in recent weeks by buying dollars at the
government rate (available to insiders) and then selling them for
almost twice as many rials on the soaring black market. Some
analysts and opposition political figures contend that Mr.
Ahmadinejad deliberately worsened the currency crisis so that his
cronies could generate profits this way.
The Iranian parliament appears to have caught wind of some of
these grievances. On Tuesday the deputy speaker announced a
successful vote to summon President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Al Jazeera reports that he will face “questioning over a long
list of accusations including mismanagement of the nation’s
economy.” Though Parliament has the constitutional power to
call the president in for questioning, no president has been
summoned since the inception of the current regime in 1979.
Meanwhile, other branches of the Iranian government have been
demonstrating increasing anxiety in the run-up to the March 2
parliamentary elections. As I’ve previously noted, Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khamenei has stepped up arbitrary arrests of journalists,
activists, and foreign nationals. The judiciary has been
upholding their death sentences. Khamenei has
warned against protests surrounding the March elections more
than once, urging voters and losing candidates not to repeat the
uprisings of 2009:
The last issue relating to the elections: The authorities should
not ignore the conspiracies of the enemies against the
elections. Those who do not receive enough votes inYou can read the rest of this article at: http://reason.com/blog/2012/02/08/iranian-parliament-question-ahmadinejad
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Posted by rbutler on Feb 8 2012. Filed under Libertarian News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry
