TEHRAN — Iran's sanctions-hit and ailing economy was at the center of the first televised debate Monday night, bringing together six candidates running in Iran's presidential elections scheduled for June 28.
The candidates – three hardliners, one traditional conservative and one reformer – traded often scathing comments with one another when asked about the future response to U.S. and European sanctions that have targeted Iran's economy for decades.
Massoud Pezeshkian, a veteran lawmaker representing the reformist faction that supports Iranian engagement, and Mostafa Pour Mohammadi, a traditionalist cleric and former judge, argued that Iran's economy has been severely hit by sanctions and reiterated the urgent need for a change in diplomatic direction.
In contrast, three hard-liners — Saeed Jalili, Alireza Zakhani and Amir Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi — have increasingly maintained that the Islamic Republic should not hinge its economic development on diplomatic efforts to lift sanctions, an approach promoted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the past three years and pursued vigorously by the late President Ibrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May and helped spark the latest general elections.