Will Iran's new president fulfill his promises? | Inside Story

Iran's new president has promised to bring changes at home and engage leaders abroad but with the supreme leader wielding the ultimate power will masud pesan be able to fulfill his promises and how will he deal with the many challenges facing his country this is Inside Story [Music] [Music] hello and welcome to the program I'm Darin abuga Iran has elected a new president masud pesan has been described by many as a moderate candidate who's been promising social reforms and engagement with the west but in the Iranian system it's the supreme leader not the president who has the final say so will pezan ction bring any shift in policy and how will he deal with the many economic and political challenges facing Iran we'll go to our panel in just a few moments but first this report from fsen monan massud pesan is Iran's new president the former Health Minister was the only candidate from the less conservative end of Iran's political Spectrum he posted a message on X calling for National Unity saying the election is over and this is just the beginning of our partnership the difficult path ahead will not be paved except with your companionship empathy and Trust in some ways pesin is an unlikely president this election took place early due to the death of his predecessor Abraham RI in a helicopter crash in May on the campaign Trail feskin promised to renegotiate the 2015 nuclear deal with the West in order to get Iran out of sanctions and revive its economy foreign policy is the art of flexibility I believe negotiations to remove sanctions sanctions are the main obstacle in front of our people he also pledged to promote gender equality and social justice a possible attempt to address the widespread discontent that led to protests in recent years it's been 40 years since we've tried to fix the issue of the hijab in all honesty have we fixed it or have we made it worse but his power to affect change has limits the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali heni holds ultimate power in the Iranian system no major policy shifts can happen without his consent peskin was also vetted and allowed to run for office where many others were not a sign perhaps that he's not expected to stray too far Vincent Monahan Al jazer for Inside Story okay we can now bring in our guest joining us from tahran is Dr fad aadi who's the head of the American studies department at the University of tan and he's also a specialist in in US Iran related issues joining us from London is roxan faran faran a lecturer in modern Middle East politics at the University of Cambridge and a specialist in Middle East security and joining us from Dubai is Dr Mahan karava who's a professor of government at Georgetown University in Qatar thank you so much for your time with us on Inside Story Dr Azadi I'll start with you first in tan so the president previously ran for the presidency in 2013 and again in 2021 but failed to make significant progress both times what was different this time around you know uh Dr pishan was endorsed by President Hami he was a minister of President Hami Health Minister during his tenure uh he was endorsed by the reformist camp officially and uh he's a reformist candidate uh you're reporting earlier in this program uh forgot to mention that and reformists in Iran have an agenda they have policy differences on foreign policy and domestic policy Economic Policy cultural policies these reformists are very different people when you compare them to the principlists or the conservatives and the office of presidency is very important in Iran uh how can you uh assess or fact check what I just said look at Iran's foreign policy during Ahmed look at Iran's foreign policy during Rohani those two people were quite different people foreign policy was that's an important point and that's that's going to be the basis of our discussion Dr aadi about the the powers of the presidency but just first just first on what's happened in the past 24 hours I just want to ask you about the turnout because turnout and the second round was at 50% uh the first round as we know as we know saw 40% why do you think that more people turned out uh for the second round and and what does it tell you I I think one reason was the request of the leader of the country the turnout was low the lower turnout brings an excuse you know Iran has a lot of enemies Western media athlets um are they have been asking Iranians not to show up to the polls we have over 100 farsia speaking channels that have been asking Iranians to boycott the elections and this is a serious defeat for these people Iran's elections are free and fair and they want to demonize Iran they want to demonize Iran's elections and you see you know they were saying that there is this uh constitutional Council that disqualifies all the reformist candidates they not only approved the reformist candidate the reformers candidate won the presidency right so Al jaaz is not a western media atlet they they have an excellent coverage on Palestine I hope they do more on Iran and present Iran as is not as well that's what we're going to be looking into in this program Mahan let me bring you in uh so the president uh uh when he won the election extended his hand to all Iranians but how does he regain the interest of those who didn't vote for him or those who simply are disheartened with the election as a whole after 2021 we see the Iranian political system system suffer from a serious legitimacy crisis 2021 featured the lowest voter turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic and this time we saw in the second round people uh turning out approximately 50% of Iranians incidentally in the first round we had an even lower voter turnout um in the first round of this election and so that legitimacy crisis has continued what we is a a level of trust and quite frankly a level of fear of the Taliban isation of Iran under a potential Jal presidency and so what we see is an effort on the part of the electorate to ensure that Iran doesn't slide further to the right and a level of trust that someone like Jal the reformists can actually do some damage control and repair the economy uh reverse some of the uh horrendous social restrictions that the ri presidency brought Iran and uh if possible improve the people's economic Lots okay how much how much power then let me ask you this uh Mahan uh Mr aadi touched upon this a moment ago I'll put the question to you how much power does the president actually have because we know that in Iran the supreme leader is the main decision maker in terms of decisions when it comes to foreign policy including for example nuclear negotiations relations with the us as well as military and security issues these fall under the remit of the supreme leader do they not they do and the president is uh constitutionally the second most powerful individual in the country and what we see is that the president if the president is able to create a consensus among the different institutions and factions of the state in the same way for example that Rohan did with the re evolutionary guards the parliament the technocratic core of the bureaucracy then they can convince the supreme leader that for example negotiations with the west or European Union are in Iran's interest uh at least uh discussion of removing sanctions is in Iran's interest and the supreme leader can be extremely pragmatic if he wants to be so I I don't think the president is powerless and can really influence the tenor of Iranian politics under certain circumstances okay let's bring in roxan do you agree with that sentiment and is it fair to say roxan that the Office of the President has a significant role in setting domestic policy specifically and especially economic matters yes I do agree with this because I think we've seen every president place his Mark upon the role and upon the uh the direction of Iran under uh his uh period in office and so I think that although of course the ultimate decision is uh with the supreme leader and his office the president can uh change the discourse can in uh introduce a number of new uh approaches both foreign policy-wise and domestic and I see that the current um newly elected president has put forth several uh options in this way he has not overextended he has not made uh wild promises what he has done has shown that he has uh an approach that's perhaps somewhat different and he has put forward a plan that I think could very much be accepted by the Supreme Leader once the different categories of the government have been brought together just for clarity which plan are you referring to here roxan so the economic and the social he's actually made a uh quite a clear statement that he's not planning on affecting the uh political mechanics uh but what he's hoping to do I think is to improve the economy through negotiations and uh less isolation with the west and he's also appealing to several groups within the uh population itself in terms of for example reducing uh the restrictions on internet use and uh the restrictions on hij job use all of which apply to a very wide swath of uh the population on the other hand it is certainly true that he will be facing a very Hardline conservative Parliament and uh his first test probably will be trying to get Minister ministerial appointments through a parliament that may not be very open to some of his suggestions okay let's bring in the view from tan F aadi so domestically how big a challenge do you think it's going to be for the president to to bring about these changes that he's spoken of and in your opinion which issues do you expect him to take on first you know he was supposed to have a press conference today the press conference was cancelled we don't know why maybe it's because we you know the election just just finished last night um he's going to have to deliver on the promises that he has made and uh he is going to try to have all his ministers the people that he wants to get the approval from the parliament you know this is how Iran's Constitution Works generally the parliament even if the majority of the members are belong to another party they generally believe that the President should be able to work with the people that he wants and this is what Mr pishan is doing as we speak I think he's making a list of his ministers he's talking to the parliament uh leaders Iranian Parliament leaders to make sure that these people get enough vote H he has promised a lot during the campaign and he doesn't have to worry about a a calm transition of power and this is another important thing about Iran's elections that uh the transfer of power is peaceful I teach American studies at University of tan we remember what happened in the United States in 2020 we we haven't had that problem for a while so I think Mr pishan is going to want to make sure that within the few months of his presidency at least some of the promises that he has made he has been able to deliver um mean and on these promises the the president has said that he he' vowed to ease long-standing internet restrictions for one as well as to oppose somewhat the police patrols which of course enforced the mandatory head scar for women the hijab how do you think that he's going to approach uh the issue of dealing with Iran's security Chiefs and clerical rulers and trying um to to uh deliver on what he said that he was going to do gingerly he's going to approach them gingerly and with deliberate care uh one thing that was interesting about Pan's campaign was managing expectations he was very careful not to overextend himself and he always said look I am fully aware and uh the electorate knows that the president is not all powerful and I'm I cannot and will not make promises of overnight changes so I think and and and I one of the other thing that was important about pesan was he emphasized the importance of dialogue and Reaching Across the aisle to people who didn't necessarily share his views and he's already said uh to is the supporters of his opponents uh that he is going to engage in dialogue and uh that he's a president for all Iranians incidentally all Iranians was the slogan of his campaign and so I think uh he's going to be very deliberate he's going to be very measured and uh I think he knows that he does not necessarily have an easy road ahead of him but uh as we heard earlier I think I think he's going to make some uh marginal social changes and that's what matters to people's daily lives the enforcement of mandatory hijab the speed of the internet uh the way they're treated on a daily basis by the city police all of these things are going to make a difference almost immediately in the way people perceive the political system well what's made a difference as well Mr Azadi um or or what people said was the biggest issue for them in this election was of course the economy so was it Mr Pan's sort of quote unquote softer position than Mr jalili that appealed to people this time around and they're hoping that that this election and this presidency will translate into an easing of sanctions which he has also promised to look at and in turn better Economic Times for them I think the Biden Administration has a window of opportunity until January of 2025 to do something serious about the sanctions if Mr pishan fail fails to deliver on his promises of reducing sanctions or eliminating sanctions then the new generation of Iranians are going to be as anti-American as the old generation of Iranians and please remember that about 14 million Iranians voted for Mr Jal yesterday so there is a huge potential to increase the number of people who oppose US foreign policy in Iran and a lot of those people who voted for Mr Ji were younger people so this is an opportunity uh for the Biden Administration whether Biden realizes this opportunity or not whether he is capable of using that opportunity we don't know but what we do know is that if Mr pishan fails in his foreign policy promises he is not going to get reelected in 4 years I understand what you're saying about the Biden Administration and we'll talk about the US election in a moment but I just got to ask you once again Mr aidi I mean from what you've seen you're in tan has has the president put forward any concrete plans on how to deal with the standoff with the West with the United States you know he's planning to bring people like Dr zarif and Dr arachi and others who negotiated the nuclear agreement Dr zarif was next to him during his campaign events uh he's you know he's a heart surgeon he's not a foreign policy specialist but during the campaign he said that he would rely on such people uh to basically resolve some of these issues and given the track record that both Dr zarif and Dr Ari actually managed to finish the nuclear agreement and have an agreement with the other side the expectation that pishan has is that they can repeat the experience of 2015 but you know this is a two-way street you need to have a partner on the other side and given what's going on with the genocide in Palestine given what's going on in the region I'm not sure if the Biden Administration is capable of using this opportunity even if they want to okay roxan I guess that is the elephant in the room I mean what happens with the US election and that may impact relations going forward uh with Iran Biden Administration versus a trump Administration but do you think that the the Revival of the G JCP the nuclear agreement is a priority for the new president and is he going to try to sort of open up a new chapter with the international atomic energy agency well I think he certainly made a point in his campaign to say it was one of the most important things to reduce uh sanctions uh as a means of improving the economy and the economy has really become a huge factor for the population in Iran and uh impoverishment a lack of opportunity these are really cutting into uh social uh welfare as well as the uh opportunities for the young people who have been very disillusioned by this whole uh political process and the ideological emphasis I think on uh the way the economy has been run and I would like to say a couple of things one he has uh pesan has already shown that he can cross the aisle in a sense he uh was able to Garner quite a few of the conservative votes who had um been on the more practical end of the conservative party and had supported Gali bof who is the um Parliament uh speaker and I think um he gained uh several million votes from that side by conservatives who realize that the economy really has got to improve if Iran is to go forward so I think he's got a uh an ally probably already in uh the G bof camp and that he has already shown that he can Garner conservative votes for some of his programs what about allies in other countries roxan will he continue or discontinue the Eastward uh looking foreign policy of the late president Ibrahim how will his relations be with Russia and China well I don't think for Iran there's much downside in continuing those relationships and so I expect that that was uh will be viewed as one of the successes of the Ry uh ter and I think that that will continue as will the uh membership of the bricks and uh the Shanghai cooperation uh organization and several of these other groups looking that way but I don't see that that will cut down uh the opportunities for pesan to find some common ground perhaps in new negotiations in Vienna but of course that will depend on who gets elected in the United States because the uh Republican candidate uh Donald Trump is the one that withdrew from the last uh deal and so that would create a completely new set of uh negotiating points for both parties going forward okay Mahan I mean you speak to us from Dubai how do you think the president is going to deal with uh sort of Gulf uh relations Neighbors in the region and also what about what's known as the axis of resistance I suppose um I know Mr aadi from tan will say he definitely expects continuity when it comes to the support of groups like Hamas and hasbalah and Yemen and the resistance in Iraq what do you think I also uh think so because uh the so-called AIS of resistance is part of Iran's deterence capability against Israel and the Israeli threat to Iran is not going away and the security policy of Iran is heavily influenced by the Revolutionary guards as well as the foreign Ministry and the presidency so I think uh you know those Dynamics aren't going to change the the international threat environment within which Iran perceives it itself is not going to change and so I don't think Iran's relations with the axis of resistance are going to change interestingly uh pesan has already come out and said that there's absolutely no reason for his administration to change the U rap Rosman with s Arabia with azaran and with Iran's other neighbors and so I think the good neighborly relations that uh RI formalized in addition to the so-called luist policy will continue as will the uh close relationship and coordination with uh groups like Hamas or the militia in Iraq or um other groups Hezbollah and Lebanon and others okay Mr aadi would you like to weigh in on this and then roxan I'll come over to you for the final word Iran is interested in improving relations with all its neighbors um this is the policy of Iran generally the problems come from the other side and I think countries like Saudi Arabia have realize that eliminating Iran or overthrowing the Islamic Republic is not going to happen the sooner Western countries realize that fact I think it's going to improve their relations with Iran there is this substantial popular support for the government 14 million people voted for the most extremist candidate based on analysis of Western media athlets and the the other people who participated in election that resulted in pans when also support a lot of these foreign policy goals because this is what pesan said during campaign so realizing that Iran's government has a legitimate interest in this part of the world world and realizing that the government has very serious popular backing will help policy makers in this part of the world and outside this region to uh basically use the potential that Iran has and have a situation where both sides can benefit just a final thought from you mradi on the issue of corruption which we didn't uh mention I mean how how can he make a difference on this issue do you think you know he's he's very clean he was asked on a television show what do you own you he's a heart surgeon so he he can manage to to have a comfortable life but he said he has a house in tan he has a house in tabis and he has a small garden so people the one reason he got elected was because of him being living modestly and this is an Islamic Republic so having Leaders with a modest lifestyle is one of the teachings of Islam okay rxan final words to you and and also do you see a a sort of comparison between this presidency of Mr pakan and the one of Hassan Rohani who was also considered a a reformist candidate well of course there is some similarity because they're on from the same uh grouping and the same political Outlook but uh I think it's worth saying that pesan is not the uh the uh expert expert that Rohani was in the nuclear area but he's also not quite as much of a fire brand as uh Rohan he was he's really in many ways a compromised candidate he's someone who uh is able to negotiate and to play the longer game it strikes me I think he represents uh his in his own background different uh ethnic groups in Iran uh and the professional groups and I think what we see as a real opportunity here of someone who's going to move quietly and slowly uh that has the confidence of the government but is going to be approaching the political and economic uh and foreign policy dimensions in a way that has not been represented by the hardliners as much his is going to be a fresher way of going about it and I think he's going to try to be inclusive I that's all of the different points that we've seen in this campaign and how the government itself has approached this and I think it's it's important for the West which tends to think of Iran is a very monolithic type of uh very authoritarian place to realize that this has been quite a competitive campaign and that he was in many ways the Dark Horse and that this kind of politics is possible in Iran and that this is an opportunity that Iran now represents for a somewhat softer and uh more constructive approach okay on that notes we'll leave it there thank you so much for joining us uh fad aadi thank you roxan fan far Mayan and Mahan crao thank you for watching you can see the program again anytime by visiting our website al.com for further discussion you can go to our Facebook page it's facebook.com AJ Insight story join the conversation on X our handle is AJ Insight story from myself and H Team here in Doha thanks for watching and bye-bye for now make sure to subscribe to our channel to get the latest news from alaz

Channel: Al Jazeera English

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Length: 27min 40sec (1660 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 06 2024