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Amin Raoufinejad

While economic crises and Ahmadinejad's failure in implementing his promises have created ‎numerous problems for the public, and the latest opinion poll results point to the public's general ‎pessimism toward Ahmadinejad's proposed "economic reforms package," Ahmadinejad ‎yesterday made a new and unexpected claim: "We can quickly rank first at the world economy." ‎

Ahmadinejad made remarks in a meeting with senior economic officials from private sector as ‎well as other economic bodies, though journalists were absent. The minutes of the meeting, ‎which was set up to discuss various aspects of the "economic reforms package," was distributed ‎by the presidential information council and all news agencies used the text from this source to ‎report the meeting. ‎

According to the president's information council, Ahmadinejad, noting that "The words 'we ‎cannot' and 'it is not possible' are meaningless via-a-vis the strong will of the Iranian nation," ‎added, "We can quickly become world's number one economy… people and groups that tolerate ‎the political, financial and economic pressures and all the threats and noise and work ever harder ‎to make sure the effects of such pressures are not felt by the general public - these bunch can ‎certainly elevate the country's economy to the first rank in the world in appropriate and calm ‎economic times." ‎

Ahmadinejad also accused former administrations of fearing public ramifications of ‎implementing projects and "obsessing too much with expertise," insisting that "all experts and ‎economic activists agree" with his administration's plan, adding, "We have to, hand in hand, ‎place our dear Iran on top of the world." ‎

Meanwhile, an Internet news website cited a new public opinion poll showing the public's ‎general pessimism toward Ahmadinejad's new "economic reforms package." According to the ‎website NoAndish, 71 percent of the website's users responded to a survey about the economic ‎reforms package that they "do not consider the plan doable and beneficial to the public." ‎

According to this website, when asked, "Do you believe the administration's economic reforms ‎package to be doable and beneficial to the public," 17 percent of respondents indicated that they ‎know nothing about the contents of the plan and 11 percent supported the government plan. ‎

The results of the latest survey on the Internet are published despite Ahmadinejad's repeated ‎claims in meeting with economic representatives yesterday regarding the public's support and ‎readiness to implement the economic reforms package: "Pressures that some inside and outside ‎the country are attempting to forge to stop the people's progress will never prevent the ‎progressive movement of the great nation of Islamic Iran."‎