Iran has appointed Abdolnasser Hemmati as its new central bank governor after a record fall in the rial triggered mass protests and intensified pressure on the government.
The AP report says President Masoud Pezeshkian’s cabinet appointed Hemmati, a former economics minister, to replace Mohammad Reza Farzin, who resigned after the currency fell to a record low against the U.S. dollar. That makes the appointment part of an urgent attempt to steady the currency at a moment of public anger.
The exchange-rate move is severe. The dollar was trading at 1.38 million rials on Wednesday, compared with 430,000 rials when Farzin took office in 2022. The report says a 40% inflation rate had already fueled public discontent, and that rising food and daily necessities prices were squeezing household budgets.
The protests were broad enough to affect commerce. Many traders and shopkeepers closed their businesses and took to the streets in Tehran and other cities. The report also says merchants and traders kept shops shut in bazaars in Tehran, Shiraz and Kermanshah. That is a sign that the currency shock had moved well beyond financial markets and into ordinary retail life.
Hemmati’s agenda, according to a government spokeswoman, includes controlling inflation, strengthening the currency and dealing with bank mismanagement. Those are large tasks for a central bank governor, particularly in a country facing Western sanctions over its nuclear program and a system already under pressure from years of depreciation.
The source notes that Hemmati is not new to the role of national economic management. He previously served as minister of economic and financial affairs, and parliament dismissed him in March over alleged mismanagement and accusations that his policies hurt the rial. That history suggests the appointment is as much a political move as a technocratic one.
The government’s warning response was also notable. Prosecutor General Mohammad Movahedi Azad said efforts to turn protests over economic issues into insecurity or property damage would face strong reaction. That indicates officials are treating the unrest as both an economic crisis and a public-order problem.
The AP report says inflation is expected to worsen after a gasoline price change introduced in recent weeks. It also places the crisis against the background of sanctions, the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal after the United States withdrew, and the broader strain that sanctions have put on Iranian households.
The new governor therefore inherits more than a central bank. He inherits a country where the value of money has become a political issue and where every exchange-rate move now carries social consequences.
Hemmati’s appointment is therefore a test of whether personnel changes can steady a currency crisis that is rooted in much bigger structural pressures. Inflation, sanctions, fiscal strain and public distrust all sit behind the numbers in the report, and none of them disappear with a new governor. The cabinet’s choice signals urgency, but the protest footage and closed bazaars show how little room there is for error.
The government’s problem is that any governor inherits the same external pressure. Sanctions, inflation and public frustration do not disappear with a personnel change, so Hemmati’s appointment is better read as a bid to restore confidence than as proof that the crisis is solved.
