People watch a televised presidential debate in Valiasr Square in Tehran on July 2. Two candidates from opposite camps will compete in a runoff election after no one garnered the majority of votes required to win the presidency last week.Iranian presidential candidates on Tuesday discussed the impact of economic sanctions imposed on their country by the United States and other Western nations and presented their proposals for reviving a nuclear deal with world powers.
Pezeshkian, a cardiac surgeon, said that sanctions imposed by the West have badly hurt Iran’s economy. He cited a 40% inflation over the past four years and the increasing poverty rates. “We live in a society in which many are begging on the streets,” he said, adding that his administration would “immediately” work to try to get sanctions lifted and vowed to “repair” the economy.
Former President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, in 2015 struck a nuclear deal with world powers that capped Iran’s uranium enrichment in return to lifting sanctions but later, in 2018, President Trump pulled the U.S. out from the landmark deal abruptly restoring harsh sanctions on Iran. Jalili, who is known as the “Living Martyr” after losing a leg in the 1980s Iran-Iraq war and is famous among Western diplomats for his haranguing lectures and hard-line stances, also pledged to support the country’s stock exchange market by providing insurance to stocks as well as financial support to local industries.