Forty years after the victory of the revolution and in a situation where the leadership of the system is writing the second step of the revolution’s statement, a painful but familiar melody is heard. Those who remember the first decades of the revolution recall the word “coupon” – or its Persian version, “kalaberg”. These were one or several coupons that were distributed by the Economic Mobilization Headquarters to the people so they could receive their share of essential goods. The people also remember the street vendors who would shout “coupon, coupon” and name their desired goods, making a profit and fueling the black market.

The Minister of Agriculture Jihad rejects the distribution of coupons, four decades after the revolution and this time due to severe inflation and meat shortages (1), but the parliament approves the plan to distribute Kalaberg or electronic coupons and Majid Kianpour, representative of Doroud and Azna and member of the parliament’s construction commission, also says that “due to lack of sufficient supervision, we have moved towards couponization.” He also cites the reason for the approval of such a plan as the fact that “there has been no mechanism for distributing essential goods in the country during this period of time and as a result, the parliament’s investigations showed that the goods do not reach the main consumer, who is the target of distributing these essential goods.” (2)

However, in the month of Bahman this year, the slogan of the authorities was different. A phrase that the Tabnak website calls “any method other than coupons.” (3) But it seems that corruption and lack of supervision over the distribution of goods have changed this slogan to a return to coupons; a corruption that a member of the Parliament’s Construction Commission puts at 70% in the past six months and says, “From the beginning of the year until now, about 22 billion dollars of essential goods have been imported at a rate of 4,200 tomans, but we still see that prices are rising and there is no supervision over their distribution, and in fact, the market may have been left uncontrolled in some way. Instead of managing and planning, they are only controlling the market.” (2)

The last coupon for sugar and sugar rationing was announced for urban households on February 25, 2009. Its announcement was supposed to mark the end of the government’s distribution system for the 16 essential items in the household basket, which had been in place since the Iran-Iraq war. However, after the end of the war, these 16 items were limited to three: sugar, oil, and rice. But the start of the war marked a turning point with the occupation of Khorramshahr by the Iraqi Ba’ath army. Khorramshahr was an important port and commercial city, and the war, the occupation of Khorramshahr, the siege of Abadan, and the burning of Khuzestan in the flames of war, followed by the lack of security and the possibility of Iraqi attacks on Iranian ships for transportation and trade, gradually took away the breath of imports in Iran. With the decrease in imports, the necessary provisions for the

The American embassy was also occupied in Aban 1358 (November 1979) and with the continuation of the hostage crisis in 1359 (1980), America was no longer a customer of Iranian oil and one of the main importers of Iranian oil at that time no longer bought oil from Iran. The country lost its main customer for oil and became embroiled in war, with its main ports also occupied. To distribute essential goods during this period, rationing was introduced and it took less than a week for the government, led by Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Rajai, to be approved. The Economic Mobilization Headquarters of the country was formed. (4) The decision-making members of the headquarters, in the fifth meeting of the Council of Ministers on Mehr 1359 (September 1980), consisted of a committee composed of “ministers of the ministries of oil, industries and mines, labor and social affairs, agriculture, country, energy, economic affairs and finance,

Over the course of three decades, the distribution of goods through coupon system in Iran was carried out in 13 stages among Iranians, from city dwellers to villagers and nomads. These coupons included items such as “gasoline, rice, oil, sugar, soap, detergent, cheese, and canned fish” as well as “meat, chicken, and eggs” during the war. These coupons also had complementary items such as “cigarettes, notebooks, stationery, and fabric for chadors”. Some domestic products like “cups and glasses” were distributed among families through the Economic Mobilization Headquarters’ booklets, with subsidized prices and the cooperation of mosques and government cooperatives.

Assuming that with the disappearance of the coupon story from Iran, it should have been left to memories, but since the issue of economic war was raised again in Iran, the memory of the coupon also came to life. In December 2018, Masoud Pezeshkian, the Vice President of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, called for the formation of an “Economic War Headquarters” (6) and later in February 2019, when Hassan Rouhani, the President of the system, said that “Ayatollah Khamenei did not accept the leadership of the economic war and entrusted it to me” (7), it became clear that the government has once again taken control, this time not in the conditions of war with Iraq, but in the face of the US withdrawal from the JCPOA and its sanctions against Iran, and since the sanctions have targeted Iran’s economy, the government has turned to the currency exchange market by forming the Economic War Headquarters. When

Before the approval of the electronic coupon plan in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, there was a lot of debate and controversy about it. Mahmoud Jamsaz, an economic analyst, believed that the return of coupons to the economy would cause dissatisfaction. On the other hand, Shahrivar newspaper published a report in late Bahman of this year titled “For the sake of a piece of meat” which has a subtitle that says: “I wish the coupons would come back.”

According to today’s news in Iran, the government is giving a 4200 toman exchange rate for essential goods, but prices are still rising, goods are being smuggled, and what is imported with the 4200 toman exchange rate is being sold in the market with the free market price. The Tehran Province Cooperative News website also published a report with the title “The Return of Coupons, the Last Solution to Fight Against Hoarders of Essential Goods” and writes: “Members of Parliament have agreed to the return of electronic coupons to the country’s economic cycle in order to reduce hoarding and speculation in the market for essential goods.”

Coupons, however, also had corruption in the years that they existed. Fake coupon papers were a widespread problem and the issue of counterfeiting was similar to counterfeiting banknotes in the country, with skilled forgers involved.

The screams of the invalid coupons we purchased are also a reminder of the days of Iran that no one should forget. With the collaboration of coupon sellers, brokers would buy people’s invalid coupons at a lower price, and then on the other hand, the coupons that were bought at a lower price and delivered to the relevant authorities would be brought to the black market at a much higher price and sold for several times the market value. Even the government’s efforts to replace the coupons with foreign paper and watermark did not yield results.

On the other hand, every household that had a larger family, had more coupons and this also became a source of income for large and illiterate families. Of course, this issue can still happen today. Despite the insistence of the leader of the system and the ruling authorities to increase the population in Iran (which, of course, was not handed over to the people during the time of the 120 and 150 million population plan by Ahmadinejad, the leader and president at the time), these new coupons can once again serve as an incentive for family planning and an excuse for new profiteering.

Today, however, it has been announced that coupons are electronic. It should be questioned how many percent of the society, which is in need of these coupons, namely the upper classes, rural areas, tribes, and low-income groups, can register on websites and follow up on their coupons? It can be asked if the first corruption cannot be caused by the fact that those who have internet access, who were eager to see the results of the entrance exam and register for subsidies during the registration period, will now also be eager for electronic coupons?

Moreover, how much can gentlemen prevent corruption and profiteering, which this method of distributing goods can produce? In the past, when paper coupons were used and embezzlements did not reach astronomical numbers, these coupons were used for buying and selling and became a reason for creating a black market. Now that even counting the zeros in the embezzlement figures declared by the government is difficult for mathematicians, is it not possible for there to be misuses of these organized electronic coupons? In the first and second decades of the revolution, the level of systematic corruption in the entire government was not as it is today. But now, when managerial and structural corruption has permeated the entire government and the issue of economic corruption is not just a talking point for the opposition, but is also mentioned in the gatherings of government officials, is it not possible for there to be abuses of this issue? And how can they manage and control the system of coupon-goods exchange electronically in a country that still

All of these are basic questions when facing this emerging but ancient phenomenon of electronic Kalabarg. In recent years, the country’s economic management has tried to control the currency and gold market, but the result has been nothing but forced exchange rates, dealing with money changers, and pressuring and spending from the country’s reserve fund. They have not been able to control it to a certain extent, and it is not clear what will happen when the six-month exemption period for buying oil from Iran ends. In fact, the government has failed in its fight against corruption in the currency and gold market before and after the recent plan that has been proposed. It seems necessary to ask how the government expects to succeed in this field, which is dependent on currency, when they have not been successful in managing it before.

The solutions are already prepared, but they denied it and said that the meat queue has been collected, but the reports indicate that no meat queue has been collected, and the chicken queue has been added to it; a chicken that has a set price of 11,500 tomans, but is being sold for 15,000 to 16,500 tomans per kilogram. (9) In fact, in a situation where until yesterday, frozen meat was only available in limited quantities with a national card, it seems that the Islamic Republic system should also think about regulating the chicken market. Their solution is probably something similar to the method of distributing red meat, where people have to stand in line for hours and receive 3 to 4 kilograms of frozen meat with their national card. Aside from the people’s character, in this distribution of red meat with the national card, the issue of some national cards being sold for meat and being exchanged in the black market also occurred. How do they

Notes:

1. The distribution of meat coupons was rejected, Event 24, 7 Esfand 1397.

2. Majid Kianpour’s interview with ILNA news agency, 16 Esfand 1397.

3. From national ID to postal code; selling processed meat in any way other than coupons, Tabnak, February 16, 2019.

4. Kiani, Morad, Political Economy of 29 Years of Iranian Communism; Is the 7-Year Absence of Khomeini Coming to an End?, BBC Persian, 22 September 2018

5. The National Economic Mobilization Headquarters, Islamic Encyclopedia

6. Physicians: Economic War Headquarters to be Formed in the Country, IRNA, 11 December 2018

7. Rouhani: Ayatollah Khamenei did not accept the leadership of economic war and entrusted it to me, BBC Persian, 15 Esfand 1397.

8. “Coupon return, the last solution to fight against profiteers of essential goods, news base of Tehran Province’s Cooperative Chamber, 13 Esfand 1397.”

9. The line for uncollected meat, the line for chicken also arrived!, ISNA, 27 Esfand 1397