TEHRAN, Iran
Iranians broadly deplore Western sanctions that have battered the economy, but the country’s six presidential candidates offer differing solutions — assuming the winner gets a say on foreign policy.
Punishing US sanctions,
reimposed following Washington’s withdrawal from a landmark 2015 nuclear deal,
have brought years of economic hardships, fueling political malaise and wide
popular discontent.
With the June 28 snap election
fast approaching, debates between the candidates vying for Iran’s
second-highest office have featured a key question: should Tehran mend ties
with the West?
Under the late president
Ebrahim Raisi, who died last month in a helicopter crash, Western governments
have expanded sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program as well as its
support for militant groups across the Middle East and for Russia in its war in
Ukraine.
The sanctions have sharply
reduced Iran’s oil revenues, heavily restricted trade and contributed to
soaring inflation, high unemployment and a record low for the Iranian rial
against the US dollar.
At Tehran’s bustling Grand
Bazaar, shopkeeper Hamid Habibi, 54, said years of sanctions “have hit people
very hard.”
“Sanctions should be removed
and ties mended with the US and European countries,” he said.
In two televised debates
focused on the economy ahead of the presidential polls, “almost all the
candidates explained that the sanctions have had devastating effects,” said
Fayyaz Zahed, a professor of international relations at the University of
Tehran.
“It is crucial to resolve this
issue to alleviate the people’s suffering,” he said.
While the six contenders —
five conservatives and a sole reformist — have all vowed to tackle the economic
hardships, they offered varying views on Iran’s relations with the West.
“If we could lift the
sanctions, Iranians could live comfortably,” said reformist candidate Massoud
Pezeshkian, considered one of three frontrunners.
Pezeshkian, who is backed by key reformist groups in Iran, called for
“constructive relations” with Washington and European capitals in order to “get
Iran out of its isolation.”
On the campaign trail, he had
the support of Mohammad Javad Zarif, a former foreign minister who helped
secure the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers and insists it had positive
impact on the Iranian economy.
Since the United States
unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018, Iran has gradually reduced its
commitment to its terms, meant to curb nuclear activity which Tehran has
maintained was for peaceful purposes.
Diplomatic efforts to revive
the deal have long stalled as tensions between Tehran and the International
Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly flared.
Former president Hassan
Rouhani, whose government negotiated the deal, said the sanctions cost Iranians
“$100 billion a year, directly or indirectly, from the sale of oil and
petrochemicals and the discounts they give” — in reference to preferential trade
with China, a signatory to the 2015 agreement.
Ultraconservative presidential
candidate Saeed Jalili, a former nuclear negotiator, has called for Tehran to
press ahead with its long-running anti-Western policy.
“The international community
is not made up of just two or three Western countries,” Jalili has repeatedly
said in debates and campaign rallies.
He said Iran should bolster
its ties with China and Russia, and forge stronger relations with Arab
countries, particularly regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia.
Conservative candidate
Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the incumbent parliament speaker, has offered a more
pragmatic approach, saying Iran should negotiate with Western countries only if
it stands to gain an “economic advantage.”
Ghalibaf called for increasing
Tehran’s nuclear capabilities, a strategy he said was already “forcing the West
to negotiate with Iran.”
Zahed, the international
relations professor, said Jalili has positioned himself as “the most inflexible
candidate on the diplomatic level.”
In any case, the expert added,
the next president will have limited say over strategic issues in the Islamic
republic where supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, wields ultimate
authority.
On Saturday, Khamenei urged
the candidates to avoid making any remarks that would “please the enemy” — in
reference to the West, mainly the United States.
The president “could only
influence foreign policy” if he “earned the trust” of Khamenei and Iran’s most
influential government institutions, Zahed said.
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