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Iran’s presidential candidates talk economic policies in second live debate ahead of June 28 vote
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — In the second live debate on state television, six presidential candidates on Thursday discussed Iran’s economic woes ahead of the country’s June 28 elections following a helicopter crash last month that killed President Ebrahim Raisi and seven others.
It was the second of five debates planned in the days before the vote in an abbreviated campaign to replace Raisi, a hard-line protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has already been considered a possible successor to the 85-year-old cleric.
Like the first debate, the second also related to the economy, with the candidates discussing their proposals for Iran’s spiraling economy, which faces sanctions imposed by the United States and other Western nations.
The candidates also discussed inflation, the budget deficit, fuel consumption subsidies and education. All promised to try to lift sanctions and introduce reforms, but none offered concrete details.
“Negotiation is a method of struggle,” said prominent candidate Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, 62, regarding the lifting of Western sanctions on Iran. Qalibaf is a former mayor of Tehran with close ties to the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
He emphasized the destructive power of sanctions on the economy and said Iranians have the right to a good life, not just a normal life.
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Iranian Vice President Amir Hossein Qazizadeh Hashemi, 53, said he would continue Raisi’s unfinished administration and promised to develop the tourism industry.
Regarding the healthcare sector and the emigration of doctors and nurses abroad, Qalibaf said there should be a fundamental change in the way healthcare workers are paid to increase their motivation to stay.
Many doctors and nurses have reportedly left Iran in recent years due to worsening economic problems and poor working conditions. Qalibaf’s call for higher salaries for healthcare workers was echoed by the other candidates.
All candidates said they believe that the Ministry of Education is the most important part of the government because “the country’s next generation is raised in this ministry”. Qalibaf said the ministry’s budget must be increased.
The only pro-reform candidate, Masoud Pezeshkian, who is supported by pro-reform figures such as former President Mohammad Khatami and former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, thinks the economic crisis can be resolved by resolving partisan differences within the country , as well as external. factors.
The June 28 elections come at a time of heightened tensions between Iran and the West due to the rapid advancement of Tehran’s nuclear program, Russia’s arming in that country’s war against Ukraine and its widespread repression of dissent.
Meanwhile, Iran’s support for proxy militias across the Middle East has increasingly come into the spotlight as Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi rebels attack ships in the Red Sea over the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza Strip.