Tehran: The Iranian Parliament dismissed the country’s finance minister on Sunday after having welcomed him on arrow inflation and a plunging currency, state television reported.
The Minister of Economy and Finance, Abdolnaser Hemmati, lost a vote of confidence, 182 of the 273 parliamentarians presenting his withdrawal.
On Sunday, the black market, the Iranian Rial was negotiating more than 920,000 in the US dollar, compared to less than 600,000 in mid-2024.
Earlier, President Masoud Pezeshkian defended Hemmati, a former governor of the Central Bank, saying to the legislators: “We are in a (economic) war on a large scale with the enemy … We must take a war form”.
“The economic problems of today’s society are not linked to a single person and we cannot blame everything on one person.”
The legislators took turns with angry, which has stopped angry, blaming him for the economic misfortunes of Iran.
“People cannot tolerate the new wave of inflation; the rise in the price of foreign currencies and other goods must be controlled,” said a parliamentarian, Ruhollah motofakker-Azad.
“People cannot afford to buy medication and medical equipment,” said another, Fatemeh Mohammadbeigi.
Pezeshkian took office in July with the ambition to rekindle the economy and put an end to certain sanctions imposed by the West.
But the damping of the Rial was only intensifying, especially since the fall of December of the Iranian ally Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
The day before his government was overthrown in Damascus, the US dollar negotiated around 717,000 Rials on the Iranian black market.
“The currency rate is not real; the price is due to inflationary expectations,” said Hemmati in his defense.
‘Chronic inflation’
“The most important problem in the country’s economy is inflation, and it is chronic inflation, which has tormented our economy for years,” added the Minister of the Economy.
Decades of sanctions led by the United States beaten the Iran economy, two-digit inflation, resulting in a consumer price increase since Washington withdrew from a 2015 nuclear agreement in 2018 in 2018.
The agreement, officially called the Complete Complete Action Plan, has provided for a softening of sanctions and the return of Western investment to Iran in exchange for increased limits on the country’s nuclear activities.
US President Donald Trump, who returned to the White House in January, has revived his policy of “maximum pressure” on Iran, more tightening restrictions on the Islamic Republic but at the same time calling for talks.
Nevertheless, the supreme chief of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, then rejected the idea of negotiations with the United States.
“I personally believe in dialogue and I will continue to do so,” Pezeshkian said during the indictment session.
“However, we will remain next to the position that the supreme chief has taken concerning America until the end, and we will do nothing else.”
The Iranian economy since 2018 has been under pressure from high inflation, serious unemployment and the damping of its currency, which weighs heavily on everyday Iranians.
That year, the Minister of the Economy, Masoud Karbasian, lost a vote of confidence during an indictment session on disastrous economic conditions.
Since 2019, inflation in Iran has been more than 30% per year, according to figures from the World Bank.
In 2023, he reached a huge 44%, according to the latest report from the Washington -based institution.
According to the Iranian Constitution, a rejection of the minister would be in effect immediately, with a goalkeeper appointed until the government chooses a replacement.
In April 2023, the deputies voted to reject the Minister of Industry Reza Fatemi Amin due to an increase in prices linked to international sanctions.