Iran’s seven presidential candidates offered starkly different views on Saturday in the country’s final debate, with hard-liners describing those seeking ties with the West as “infiltrators” and the race’s sole moderate warning a hard-line government would only bring more sanctions for the Islamic Republic.
Analysts and state-linked polling put hard-line judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi as the clear front-runner in Friday’s upcoming vote, with the public now largely hostile to the relative moderate President Hassan Rouhani after the collapse of Tehran’s nuclear deal with world powers.
But that didn’t stop Rouhani’s former Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati from harshly criticizing Raisi, at one point getting up from his chair to hand him a list he described as naming individuals who haven’t paid back huge loans from state banks. He again tried to link Raisi to former President Donald Trump, whose decision to unilaterally withdraw America from Iran’s nuclear deal has seen the country crushed by sanctions.
“Mr. Raisi, you and your friends have played in Trump’s ground with your extremist policies,” Hemmati said. For his part, Raisi said he’d make sure the government returns to the nuclear deal.
The deal “would not be executed by you, it needs a powerful government to do this,” Raisi said. The election Friday will see voters pick a candidate to replace Rouhani, who is term limited from running again. The vote comes amid tensions with the West as negotiations continue to try and resuscitate the nuclear deal, which saw Iran agree to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.