Overview: Iran Analysis Weekly Report Feb 07, 2016
07 Feb., 2016
Vistar Business Minitor
As the Parliament and Assembly of Experts elections, which set to take place on 26 February 2016 approach, political in-fighting is considerably heating up. Debate continued over the Guardian Council’s extensive vetting of electoral candidates, particularly the disproportionate disqualification of Reformist-inclined candidates.
On February 1 Expediency Council Chairman Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani criticized Hassan Khomeini’s disqualification by the Guardian Council during a speech commemorating the Ten Days of Dawn. Rafsanjani pointed to the Guardian Council and stated, “Where did you get your qualifications? Who allowed you to judge?”
Several prominent conservative figures spoke out against Rafsanjani’s February 1 comments challenging the Guardian Council’s right to vet electoral candidates. The hardliner newspaper Vatan-e Emrooz published an article calling for the Guardian Council to disqualify Rafsanjani from the upcoming Assembly of Experts elections because he has “officially questioned the structure of the Islamic Republic.”
However, despite massive disqualification of Reformists, Reformist politicians encourage voter participation.
Guardian Council Spokesman Nejatollah Ebrahimian told reporters on February 6 that the Guardian Council, reversed a ban on 1,500 candidates. He said a list of approved candidates has been conveyed to the Interior Ministry. It said over 6,200 candidates have been approved to run for the 290-seat parliament.
On the economic note, Iranian president Hassan Rouhani made a four-day visit to Italy and France last week, after the European Union (EU) and the US lifted sanctions on Iran following the signing of a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program last July.
During President Rouhani’s tour to Paris and Rome they signed deals worth billions of euros. Around 20 memorandum of understandings were signed between the governments of Iran and France. The two countries private sectors have also signed at least 10 cooperation contracts. Furthermore, around 14 contracts were also signed with the Italian government and companies.
In its recent report Moody’s Investors Service has said Iran’s gross domestic product will grow 5 percent in 2016-2017. It added International sanctions meant that Iran had to adapt to the reality of lower oil revenues and implement structural reforms much earlier than other oil-exporters. Most other oil-dependent sovereigns are only just beginning to consider structural fiscal reform.
According to senior officials, the nonperforming loans (NPL) of Iranian lenders have declined from 14% to 12%. However, he acknowledged that the bad loans remain a major concern for the government.
The governor of the Central Bank of Iran emphasized past week that the implementation of the nuclear accord between Iran and the six world powers has indeed paved the way for unifying currency rates and the dual foreign exchange rate system will shift to single rate within six months.
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