mains a gigantic black hole with no information on what is happening announced in three weeks.
A few weeks ago, President Ahmadi-nejad announced that he would be going on television the next week and would then lay out the whole program for the Iranian public. He did appear on television in his patented format of being interviewed by a state television newsman. And he was asked about the subsidy-to-welfare plan, But he declined to spell out any details. He brushed aside the questions by saying that all Iranians were aware of the plans to eliminate subsidies.
All other officials remain silent as well about the great shift.
On October 16, the Administration announced it was depositing welfare payments in the bank accounts of residents living in the three provinces of the northeast and said that people in the other provinces would shortly receive the deposits as well. It said none of the money could be withdrawn until the government gave the go-ahead.
That was the last that was said about the program. No go-ahead for withdrawals has yet been announced. And no dates on when subsidies would be lifted on any products have been announced.
The government has said that gasoline subsidies will continue at least through the end of the current month of Aban on November 21. But it hasn’t said anything about the price on November 22.
Meanwhile, former presidential candidate Mir-Hossain Musavi has said the government simply is not competent enough to pull off this big an administrative change. He charged that the Ahmadi-nejad Administration fired too many qualified managers when it took office and put its own people in technical posts.
“We are not against the change,.” Musavi said. “What we are saying is that they [the government] do not have the people to execute and manage this plan as the most able administrators have been sidelined.”
Some in the government clearly fear there will be street disorders when the shift is made. That could be the reason no shift has yet been made.
In recent weeks, the national police chief, prosecutor general and interior minister have all warned the public that they are prepared to slam down any hint of protests when the shift begins.
Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar said, “If a few people want to oppose the entire nation and seek to protest, the law enforcement forces will deal firmly and legally with them.”
Police Chief Esmail Ahmadi-Moqaddam charged that the opposition Green Movement was planning to foment “economic unrest” when subsidies are lifted.
Prosecutor General Abbas Jafari-Dolatabadi said he had evidence that some people would seek to create instability by hoarding goods and staging strikes when the change goes into effect.
Most attention has focused on the elimination of gasoline subsidies. But subsidies are due to be lifted bit-by-bit over five years from all fuels, utilities, rice, wheat, vegetable oil, sugar, milk, mail service, airline tickets and rail services.
As subsidies are to be phased out, it is possible the hike in prices when the shift begins will actually be much less than the wary public anticipates. If that is true, the opposition may not be as great as many in the regime clearly fear. Right now, there are two competing fears—that of the public over sharp price hikes, and that of the government over violent opposition.
Within the middle class that is the heart of the Green Movement, there is some speculation the regime may even intend the shift away from subsidies to harm the middle class financially. This logic holds that the upper class is so wealthy that the end of subsidies will do it no harm while the lower class will do well because its welfare payments will exceed the lost subsidies. But some in the middle class see their costs rising without welfare payments to offset them.
Abbas Abdi, a reformist who was one of the leaders of the US embassy takeover three decades ago, recently reasoned: “The subsidy plan will lead to the middle classes becoming more dependent on the state. They will be poorer and will lose influence. The government will be pleased with this.”