To read the media or listen to state broadcasting, one would think that everyone is overjoyed to be paying four times as much for gasoline now.
All members of the Majlis similarly remain muzzled. While a few have complained privately to foreign reporters, none has spoken out publicly with a word of criticism, telegraphing that the deputies have been ordered by the Supreme Leader not to broach the topic.
Gasoline consumption plummeted after the price was hiked December 19. That is not surprising anywhere in the world. They key was what would happen to sales in the second week after the price hike, by which point many drivers would be facing empty tanks.
The National Oil Products Distribution Co. said its data show that gasoline sales in that second week, ending December 30, averaged 57 million liters a day. Sales in the weeks just prior to price hike had been averaging 63 million liters a day, the organization had said then.
That is a substantial reduction. It is possible that gasoline sales will rise, however, as people adjust psychologically to the higher price.
The price is now the equivalent of $2.55 a US gallon. And that price is about what Americans are paying before state and federal taxes are added. In other words, Iranians are now paying the market rate for gasoline. But the law enacted a year ago said that fuel subsidies were to be phased out over five years so that the market rate would be applicable in 2015.
President Ahmadi-nejad had proposed a phase-out over three years. The Majlis changed that, over loud objections from Ahmadi-nejad, to five years to minimize the price jolt. But now Ahmadi-nejad has completed the phase-out in one night.
Yet Majlis deputies remain silent in public.
That silence tells a lot about the coercive power of the regime. But Ahmadi-nejad does not have that authority. Only the Supreme Leader could have commanded such silence. It remains to be seen if the silence will stick as deputies hear from angry constituents. But it has stuck so far for 2 1/2 weeks.
