Tehran, Iran — Six presidential candidates discussed Iran’s economic problems in a four-hour live debate on state television on Monday, ahead of the June 28 presidential election following a helicopter crash last month that killed President Ebrahim Raisi and seven more.
It was the first of five debates planned in the 10 days left before the vote in a shortened campaign to replace Raisi, a hardline protégé of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei He was once floated as a possible successor to the 85-year-old cleric.
The candidates had to discuss their proposals and plans for Iran’s growing economy, struggling under sanctions of the United States and other Western nations.
All promised that they would try to lift sanctions and introduce reforms, but none offered details. The candidates also discussed inflation, the budget deficit, Iran’s housing problem and ways to fight corruption.
The June 28 elections come at a time of intense tensions between Iran and the West over The rapid advance of Tehran’s nuclear programhis armed Russia in that country’s war against Ukraine and its extensive repressive measures against dissent.
Meanwhile, Iran’s support for militias across the Middle East has increasingly been in the spotlight as Iran backs Yemen’s Houthi rebels attack ships in the Red Sea about him War between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Five of the candidates are hardliners, while the sixth candidate, lawmaker Masoud Pezeshkian, 69, is a heart surgeon who has the support of some reformists.
The most prominent candidate remains Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, 62, a former mayor of Tehran with close ties to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard. However, many remember that Qalibaf, as a former Guard general, was part of a violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999. He also reportedly ordered the use of live firearms against students in 2003, while He served as the country’s police chief.
Among the presidential candidates are also the vice president of Iran, Amir Hossein Qazizadeh Hashemi, 53, and the current mayor of Tehran, Ali Reza Zakani, 58. Supreme National Security Council member Saeed Jalili, 58, and cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi, 64, a former interior minister during the government of relatively moderate former president Hassan Rouhani, are also in the race.
Qalibaf promised he would be a “strong” president who would support the poor, better manage the economy and strive to remove sanctions through diplomatic means.
Pezeshkian called the sanctions a “disaster” and also pushed for easing of internet restrictions. Iran has long blocked Facebook, X, Instagram, Telegram and other major social media platforms and messaging systems, mainly for security reasons.
All candidates pledged to strengthen the country’s currency, the rial, which has plummeted to 580,000 against the dollar. The rial was at 32,000 to the dollar when Iran and world powers reached a deal in 2015 to limit Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions.
The six stayed away from the topic of the tattered nuclear deal. Khamenei has the final say on all major state affairs, including nuclear, foreign policy, space and military programs.
Pro-reform figures such as former President Mohammad Khatami and former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal, have backed Pezeshkian, although votes in his favor in his parliamentary constituency in the northwestern city of Tabriz fell from 36 % to 24%. of the vote in the elections of the last eight years.
Raisi won Iran’s 2021 presidential election in a vote that had the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic’s history.
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