Not a word critical of the plan has been published and no criticism has been voiced in the Majlis since the change took effect December 19.
The silence is loud.
It shows that the regime is capable of enforcing total compliance within the political elite when it chooses to do so.
No public policy has been so controversial as the move away from subsidies. For years before December 19, it was routinely among the most discussed topics in the country.
But on December 19, a giant gate came crashing down and the topic was taken off the list of permitted discussion topics.
How the regime managed to enforce this total silence is unclear—but likely to be a good topic for a doctoral dissertation, whenever someone feels able to ask the questions.
Clearly, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi weighed in. No president has the authority to order everyone to march in line. Only the Supreme Leader can do that—and even he can only do so on limited occasions.
Silence has been ordered—and enforced—before on selected topics. For example, trial shifts in policy toward the United States have brought unusual quiet on the political front.
But subsidies are vastly different. Subsidies impact every single citizen of the republic. They are not an esoteric topic like nuclear policy or relations with the United States.
While the political classes may not be discussing subsidies today, all other Iranians are. Those eyes that peer out from chadors are popping at some of the prices being seen in markets. In the past, it has been just such price jumps that have started housewives complaining and their husbands carping.
While they are not silent in the privacy of their homes, there is no public debate permitted. Citizens may be calling newspapers and radio hotlines to gripe—but, if so, the newspapers and radio programs are simply ignoring them.
One person and one person only speaks regularly about the shift from subsidies to cash welfare. That is President Ahmadi-nejad. He mentions it in almost every speech he gives these days. He assures one and all that everything is going swimmingly.
In a television interview broadcast nationally last week, the president said that since the shift was made two months ago electricity consumption has fallen 9.5 percent, gasoline consumption is down 22 percent, and grain consumption has dropped 28 percent. That is grain, as in wheat, the main ingredient of bread, the staple of the Iranian diet.
All this has happened without anyone saying a word, if one is to believe the media in the Islamic Republic.
The government is paying families about $40 per month per person to offset the loss of the subsidies. The concept is that most subsidies went to the rich but most of the welfare will go to the poor, thus actually making the poor better off without subsidies.
In theory, that should be the way it works. The public should be talking about just that on a daily basis, comparing how much spendable cash they have now compared to two months ago, and making judgments on whether they are better off today than before.
But in the public media, there is only silence.
