TEHRAN – Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called for unity on Saturday inthe face of criticism from all sides of his handling of an economic crisisand tensions with the United States.
“Now is not the time to unload our burdens on to somebody else’s shoulders.We must help each other,” Rouhani said in a televised speech at the shrineof late revolutionary leader Ruhollah Khomeini.
“The country’s problems and resisting foreigners’ conspiracies is theresponsibility of every one of us.”
With rapidly rising food prices, a dramatic currency collapse and thereimposition of US sanctions after it abandoned a 2015 nuclear deal, manyIranians are in a bleak mood.
Much of his electoral base among reform-minded urbanites has lost faith inhim, while working-class areas have seen months of sporadic strikes andprotests that have occasionally turned violent.
Some of the most virulent criticism has come from the hardline religiousestablishment who long opposed Rouhani’s efforts to rebuild ties with theWest.
On August 16, an image went viral of a protest by seminary students in theshrine city of Qom, at which one placard warned Rouhani would meet the samefate as former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was found dead in aswimming pool last year.
Rouhani sought to play down the differences, saying: “The clerical,religious institutions and the government are alongside each other.” But headded a typically cryptic warning: “No one can walk into the sea and notexpect to get his feet wet.”
Hardliners have been blamed for stoking economic protests that havesometimes turned against the Islamic system as a whole.
Rouhani still has the support of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whosays he must remain in power to avoid further disorder.
But Khamenei has also blamed government mismanagement, rather than foreignhostility, for the current crisis. “We are aware of people’s pain,suffering and problems and all our efforts are geared at reducing theseproblems,” Rouhani pledged. – APP/AFP