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Khatami lacks economic agenda: paper

TEHRAN, Aug 2 (AFP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami's democratic reforms have failed to address the nation's economy, which is enthrall to corrupt middlemen waging "economic terrorism," a newspaper charged Monday.

The English-language Iran Daily said Khatami's reform agenda has taken no steps against the politically powerful bazaaris, Iran 's traditional middlemen whose control of the bazaars directs much of the nation's economy.

"In the system of trading, production and services, there exists an army of middlemen and mafia-like enterprises ... Their economic terrorism goes unattended," the paper said.

"Consumer rights are unknown while those in the wholesale and retail trade make a mockery of universal business practices," it said.

"The Khatami administration has overcome some major hurdles on the road to m

eaningful political reform. But it is equally true that it lacks an economic agenda," it said. "Given the prohibitive rise in living costs, education and health care, life has become a constant and precarious struggle. Many working-class families can hardly recall the last time they bought new clothes," it said.

Iran 's stumbling economy has been hard hit by the recent fall in worldwide oil prices, a drought that has destroyed much of the nation's crops and surging inflation that sent the value of the Iranian rial tumbling.

Since Khatami's election in 1997 he has tried to carry out an ambitious programme of social and political reform, including the easing of restrictions on the press.

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