Ghodratollah Alikhani, member of the eight Majlis minority reformist faction, told Rooz in an interview that the first priority of the eight Majlis must be to curb inflation and improve standards of living: "The Majlis would meet with the administration and take actions to hopefully improve the economic and living conditions compared to before and, at least, curb inflation."
This eight Majlis deputy noted that "the eight Majlis would be better than the seventh" and hoped that the Majlis is able to exert its authority and make good decisions for the people.
Responding to a question about why people are facing intolerably high housing and food prices despite record-breaking oil revenues, Alikhani said, "in my opinion, management is weak, planning is weak. With the removals taking place it can be said that management in some organizations and ministries is unstable. These are factors that are harmful. I hope we can avoid these behaviors in order to improve the conditions."
Commenting on how economic problems are rooted in weak management, Alikhani said, "We don't lack wealth. We have lots of money. Therefore, we need management and I hope that the Majlis can help management and planning and be a good leader toward improve conditions. Otherwise, we won’t need foreigners. We have all kinds of resources in our country and if there is correct planning and management, with these vast resources that we have inside our country and the 130 dollars-per-barrel oil that we sell we should be able to smoothly run the country."
This eight Majlis lawmaker hoped that the administration would maintain better relations with the eight Majlis: "The administration has announced that it would have better cooperation with the eight Majlis. I hope that is the case."
Responding to a question about the nature of Majlis-administration relations in the coming months, Alikhani only said, "With 290 deputies in the Majlis, there are various opinions. The purpose of the Majlis indeed lies in that."
