Nearly two years after Hassan Rouhani took office as president in 2013, he delivered one key presidential campaign promise when Tehran struck a deal with the West, under which Iran agreed to roll back its nuclear program in exchange for the removal of economic sanctions.

The political feat, so to speak, was a yardstick of how much Iranians were true in pinning hopes on their votes to make a huge difference internationally. 
Pursuant to the pact, the country is now emerging from years of limping along under the weight of crushing sanctions, albeit there are still obstacles on the way to overcome.
While the majority of Iranians unanimously have come to hail Rouhani’s foreign policy record, there is discord on the administration’s domestic agenda chiefly because of the economic stagnation although Rouhani tries to press ahead with economic reforms. 
The pocket money complaints, as I wish to call them so, are understandable, explicable by a number of factors, inter alia, fluctuations in oil prices and regional conflicts, not to mention the tremendous backlog from previous administrations. 
Moreover, for the nuclear deal to ultimately translate into public benefit, one has to be more patient as many prospective partners are currently scoping out the Iranian market. 
This is unfortunate that the public obsession with the pocket money has drawn attention away from one highlight in the administration’s profile: Keeping a check on the once-unbridled inflation rate, lowering it from a high of almost 45 percent to less than 10 percent. 
The International Monetary Fund has seen the achievement a promising index of the Iranian economy. During a May appearance with Valiollah Seif, the governor of the Central Bank of Iran (CBI), IMF’s First Deputy Managing Director David Lipton emphasized that Iran needs to preserve its economic achievements brought about by a drop in inflation.
Hence, according to economic parameters, the country is on the path to progress though the market takes a bit more time to shake up. This is exactly where President Rouhani’s dilemma appears: on the one hand, the government has fared well in the international era and on the other, it faces business urges inside the country. 
And it seems that no one more that the president himself is going to pay the price for the situation now that hours are ticking away. In less than one year from now, Iranians will be deciding who their next president will be. 
However, the world of politics has always been unpredictable and for one thing Rouhani can be more confident of a second term: the payslip row. 
The outrage first erupted in May when a series of pay stubs surfaced online, showing a state insurance company manager and some banking officials were being paid ridiculously high monthly wages. 
Later revelations indicated that many more were receiving astronomical pays. As a consequence, the managerial board of the National Development Fund resigned en masse after some of their payslips were leaked. 
While staunch supporters of Rouhani consider the payslip debate as part of a campaign by opponents to crush his re-election chances, Rouhani himself acted very tactically and tactfully, issuing a statement on July 4 promising that as president he would follow up the issue steadfastly. 
The climax of the story was the Friday report by First Vice President Es’haq Jahangiri in which he had enumerated banking, structural, and legislative loopholes, to name few, as reasons for inflated salaries. 
He also had pointed the finger at some wrong measures taken in previous administrations such as dissolving the Management and Planning Organization. Short- and long-term solutions had also been introduced.
The government’s firm stance has been hailed by citizens as well as officials, which can help Rouhani find a way out of the external-internal dilemma. Of course, this will much hinge on next practical steps by the incumbent administration to implement what it has vowed to do in this regard. 
It would be hardly ever an overstatement if we say Rouhani is the first president in the post-revolutionary era who truly has shown speechifying would take us nowhere!
He clinched the nuclear deal with the West, reined in inflation, and now, has promised to launch a probe into how public funds are spent, which in turn results in transparency. 
If the transparency initiative bears fruit, it guarantees a second term for President Rouhani. And he knows this very well!