{"id":340253,"date":"2025-12-08T10:09:29","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T09:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=340253"},"modified":"2025-12-08T10:09:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-08T09:09:29","slug":"irans-currency-breaks-records-as-water-crisis-toxic-air-and-parliamentary-infighting-signal-a-system-under-strain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/economy\/irans-currency-breaks-records-as-water-crisis-toxic-air-and-parliamentary-infighting-signal-a-system-under-strain\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Currency Breaks Records as Water Crisis, Toxic Air and Parliamentary Infighting Signal a System Under Strain"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Iran\u2019s
People line up outside a currency exchange in central Tehran as the dollar surges<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Four-minute read<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Iran entered the week with another historic economic shock: on Sunday, December 7, 2025, the free-market dollar pierced 124,000 tomans<\/a>, the highest rate ever recorded. Gold prices continued their climb. Even the regime\u2019s own lawmakers, usually constrained in public remarks, warned that the budget for 2025 is unworkable and that inflationary pressure is accelerating beyond the state\u2019s ability to manage.<\/p>\n

The currency spike is not occurring in a vacuum. It lands atop a deepening water crisis, a public-health emergency driven by toxic air and influenza, and increasingly visible fractures inside the state\u2019s political institutions. Together, these signals sketch a government running out of both resources and levers of control.<\/p>\n

Parliament Breaks Ranks Over A \u201cZombie Budget\u201d<\/h2>\n

A combative parliamentary session on December 6 revealed how far the internal rifts have widened. Multiple MPs accused the government of delivering a budget so opaque<\/a> and structurally unsound that \u201cwe do not know what we are voting on.\u201d Others alleged that strategic decisions\u2014on fuel pricing, the use of high-sulfur fuel oil (mazut), and even security classifications\u2014were being made in extra-parliamentary \u201cleaders\u2019 councils\u201d without legislative oversight.<\/p>\n

One MP warned that for the first time in Iran\u2019s modern budget history, the capital-expenditure balance had turned 60 trillion tomans negative in the first seven months of the fiscal year\u2014a shift that forces the government toward heavier debt issuance and central-bank financing, the very mechanisms that fuel inflation. The warning now carries added weight: newly released Central Bank figures<\/a>\u2014data that the institution withheld for years\u2014show that inflation exceeded 50% in 10 out of 12 months of 2023, with only two months falling below that threshold. With such levels now confirmed, even state-aligned lawmakers conceded that the administration\u2019s proposal for 20% wage increases is essentially meaningless against a price environment that has been structurally hyper-inflationary for more than a year.<\/p>\n

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#Iran<\/a>\u2019s Winter of Smog and Shortages Deepens the Regime\u2019s Crisishttps:\/\/t.co\/fp8q5DEXbk<\/a><\/p>\n

— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) November 30, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n