Iran appointed Abdolnasser Hemmati as the new governor of the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran on Wednesday, as economic protests erupted after the Iranian rial slid to a record low against the U.S. dollar.
President Masoud Pezeshkian’s Cabinet appointed Hemmati, IRNA reported, according to the Associated Press. Hemmati succeeds Mohammad Reza Farzin, who resigned on Monday, one day after the start of some of the largest protests in Iran in three years.
The protests were sparked by the decline of the rial to a record low, AP reported. Experts told AP that a 40% inflation rate contributed to public discontent.
AP reported that the dollar traded at 1.38 million rials on Wednesday, compared with 430,000 rials when Farzin took office in 2022. On Sunday, many traders and shopkeepers closed their businesses and took to the streets of Tehran and other cities, witnesses said.
Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani wrote on X that Hemmati’s agenda will include controlling inflation and strengthening the currency, and also addressing what she described as mismanagement of banks. Hemmati, 68, previously served as minister of economic and financial affairs under Pezeshkian.
In March, parliament dismissed Hemmati for alleged mismanagement and accusations that his policies weakened the rial against hard currencies, AP reported. The article linked the combination of currency depreciation and inflationary pressure to higher prices for food and other daily necessities, adding strain to household budgets already under pressure amid Western sanctions tied to Iran’s nuclear program.
Inflation was expected to worsen further with a gasoline price change introduced in recent weeks, AP said. Prosecutor General Mohammad Movahedi Azad was cited by Mizanonline on Wednesday warning that efforts to turn economic protests into insecurity, damage public properties, or follow foreign scenarios would face a strong reaction.
In a separate report, Mizanonline said Hamed Ostevar, head of the justice department of southern Iran’s city of Fasa, denied that a young man had been killed during a protest. Mizanonline reported that Ostevar said protests turned violent after crowds broke into the governor’s office, injuring three policemen, and that four protesters were arrested.
Witnesses told AP that merchants and traders kept their shops closed in Tehran’s main bazaars, as well as in the southern city of Shiraz and the western city of Kermanshah, on Wednesday.
The AP also recalled that the rial traded at 32,000 rials to the dollar at the time of the 2015 nuclear accord, when international sanctions were lifted in exchange for tight controls on Iran’s nuclear program. It said the deal unraveled after President Donald Trump withdrew the United States unilaterally in 2018 during his first term.