Iranian presidential polls began on Friday in the wake of ultraconservative President Ebrahim Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash last month.
The supreme leader of Iran, Khamenei, has the last say over political decisions. The candidate who “really believes in the ideas of the Islamic Revolution” of 1979, which toppled the US-backed monarchy, must be “the most qualified candidate,” Khamenei said this week.
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He asserted that the incoming president must permit Iran “to progress forward without being dependent on foreign countries.” Khamenei did add, though, that Iran should not “break its contacts with the world.”
During the campaign debates, Jalili aimed for the moderates to sign the 2015 nuclear pact, which guaranteed Iran sanctions relief in exchange for program reductions. According to Jalili, the agreement “did not benefit Iran at all,” the United States withdrew from it in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump.
Pezeshkian has called for actions to be taken to save the deal and remove the severe economic sanctions placed on Iran. He questioned, “Are we meant to be inherently opposed to America, or should we seek solutions to our issues with this nation?”
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During the campaign, the divisive topic of women’s mandatory head coverings surfaced. Almost two years had passed since Mahsa Amini, 22, died while in the custody of the government, sparking a nationwide protest movement. Amini, a Kurdish woman from Iran, was detained on suspicion of breaking the nation’s severe dress code for women.
During the live debates, every contender disassociated themselves from the occasionally harsh police detentions of women who refuse to cover their heads in public with their headscarf. The lone cleric running for office, Pourmohammadi, declared that “we should never treat Iranian women with such harshness.”
