The Jerusalem flag march will take place next Tuesday, two days after the vote on the new government

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Iran’s 2nd presidential debate sees candidates piling up on Rouhani’s criticism

The seven Iranian presidential candidates put all the problems of the Islamic Republic on the shoulders of the one man who was not there to defend himself: the outgoing president Hassan Rouhani.

After a heated initial debate, aspirants for a televised debate focus their attention on Rouhani and scoff at his administration’s campaign of “hope” that surrounded his now-tattered 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

This allowed candidates to tie former Central Bank chief Abdolnasser Hemmati to Rouhani while allowing outright judicial leader Ebrahim Raisi, considered the race favorite, to largely escape criticism.

The impending June 18 election will see voters choose a candidate to replace Rouhani, who has a limited term to stand for re-election. The election comes amid tensions with the West as negotiations continue to try to resuscitate the nuclear deal that then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from America in 2018.

Iranian Presidency President Hassan Rouhani speaks at a cabinet meeting in Tehran, Iran, April 14, 2021 (Office of the Iranian Presidency via AP)

Hemmati, clearly frustrated at being constantly linked to Rouhani, even elevated Trump himself in an attempt to defend himself.

“Some of you have to send a letter to Trump and say to him ‘Mr. Trump, be happy, whatever you did against the Iranian people, we blamed it on Hemmati,” he said.

The debate comes as Iranian authorities hope to increase turnout, long seen by officials as a sign of confidence in the theocracy since the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran’s state-linked student polling agency predicted a 38 percent turnout of the country’s 59 million eligible voters, which would be a historic low amid a lack of voter enthusiasm and of the coronavirus pandemic.

Raisi, considered the favorite of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, speaks of the public’s lack of confidence.

“The living conditions of the people have been severely damaged. People’s businesses have been badly damaged. People’s confidence in government is perhaps at its lowest in years and has been badly damaged, ”he said. “We strongly need the social asset.

But critics almost always remain focused on Rouhani. The intransigent Mohsen Rezaei, ignoring a question put to him by the moderator, said sharply “you can’t eat hope” in a blow to the president. He also puts corruption issues squarely on Rouhani’s government.

“The kings of the mafia are like vacuum cleaners and suck up all the resources of the country,” Rezaei says.

Even Mohsen Mehralizadeh, the only reformist approved for the election, criticizes Rouhani’s health ministry for being “negligent” in its response to the coronavirus.

For his part, Hemmati is seeking to distance himself from Rouhani, describing himself as having been sacked from the Central Bank in May after declaring his candidacy.

“I am not Rouhani’s representative,” he insists.

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