Rouhani's food distribution plan sparks uproar in Iran

When the government of Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian president, launched a poverty alleviation programme by distributing free food to protect millions of low-income families, it did not expect to provoke an uproar.

But long waits at distribution centres and allegations that baskets are filled with poor quality foodstuffs have been seized upon by the president's opponents, whom analysts believe will take any opportunity to undermine his government. The front pages of hardline newspapers and websites on Monday featured pictures of snaking queues of poor Iranians waiting in the cold to get their rations, with headlines accusing the government of showing a lack of respect for people.

"I was the 600th person on the waiting list and it took me from 7am to 1pm to receive my basket [of goods]," said Abbas, a retired worker, after he collected his ration from the state-run Etka chain store in a lower middle-class neighbourhood of southeastern Tehran.

The food distribution programme is supposed to help protect the poor against rising consumer prices. High inflation - officially 39.3 per cent, but believed to be much higher - accompanied by severe economic stagnation and youth unemployment of 24.3 per cent, has meant that many Iranians find it difficult to afford basic foodstuffs.

Most economists blame the high prices on the previous government's populist policies, including a monthly cash payment of 455,000 rials ($18) given to almost all of the 75m-strong population, supposedly to compensate for prices rises caused by a slash in subsidies on energy and basic commodities but which instead fuelled inflation. The impact of international sanctions over the nuclear programme has also worsened economic hardship over the past two years.

Since Sunday, about 7m families, including those covered by state-run charity organisations, retired government employees and workers earning less than 5m rials ($200) a month became eligible to receive 10 kgs of rice, two frozen chickens, 24 eggs, about half a kilogramme of cheese and two bottles of vegetable oil this month. A similar ration is due next month.

Khadijeh, a 36-year-old housewife married to a pick-up driver, missed out on the food quota and, like others in her situation, is upset that she could soon lose her monthly cash payment.

"This distribution of cheap Indian rice and smelly chicken and oil is preparation for cutting our monthly cash [to compensate for cut in subsidies]. It's really annoying," she said. Her family of four receives $73.1 every month, about one-fifth of her husband's income.

Mr Rouhani is finding it difficult to roll back the policies he inherited from his predecessor, president Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, without provoking public opinion.

His government, which took over last summer on promises of improving the economy, is committed to pay about $1.4bn each month to compensate for the cut in subsidies even though payment costs the state more than twice what it saves from the subsidy cut. It is not clear whether the government intends to gradually replace the monthly cash with food in an effort to minimise the budget deficit and to curb the inflationary impact of the cash payment.

Ali Rabiee, Iran's minister of social welfare, said on Monday that the number of food recipients will gradually increase and he called on domestic media not to exaggerate the weaknesses of the initiative.

But opponents of Mr Rouhani seized on the programme's problems to criticise his government.

Some hardline members of Iran's parliament on Monday threatened to launch an investigation into the food distribution programme, while the judiciary urged the government to change its approach.

"What happened during the distribution of 'the basket of goods' is below people's dignity," Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, a hardline spokesman for the judiciary, said on Monday. "The government should find a better solution."

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