Gov’t Urged to Focus on Less Privileged

A majority of Iranians chose to place their confidence in President Hassan Rouhani once again, as they believed the path his government took over the past four years was the right one, a prominent Iranian economist said.

“In choosing him, people did not rebuff materialism and economy, but they did say no to unrealistic promises,” Khabar Online also quoted Saeed Laylaz as saying.

Rouhani secured 57% of the votes in a May 19 election, which means he will head the administration for another four years.

Referring to the point that aside from 8 million priciplists’ base voters, about 10% of people, mainly the less-privileged, voted for Ebrahim Raeisi (Rouhani’s main challenger in the election, Laylaz said, “The new administration needs to pay particular attention to this group. I strongly recommend the government to care about economic growth policies, revenues distribution policies and the five target groups, namely retirees, workers, civil servants, pensioners and farmers.”

Raeisi ranked second in the election with 15,786,449 or 38.5% of the total ballots.

“Distribution of revenues must be organized. The government should phase out cash subsidy payment to well-off echelons and allocate the revenues to the five groups mentioned before,” Laylaz said.

“The administration of President Rouhani should forge ahead with its Health Reform Plan, particularly in less-privileged suburbs and outlying areas.”

The Health Reform Plan was introduced to fulfill President Rouhani’s election campaign promise of healthcare for all Iranians by 2018 under a nationwide health insurance program.