The Ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi was inaugurated on Tuesday as president of Iran, replacing moderate president Hassan Rouhani whose landmark achievement was the 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and six world powers. Now the country’s hopes of shaking off a dire economic crisis hinge on reviving a nuclear deal with world powers.
Raisi won a presidential election in June in which more than half the electorate stayed away after many heavyweights were barred from standing.
Tuesday’s ceremony marked Raisi’s formal accession to office. He will next be sworn in before parliament on Thursday when he is to submit his proposed government line-up.
Raisi’s presidency will consolidate power in the hands of conservatives following their 2020 parliamentary election victory, marked by the disqualification of thousands of reformists or moderate candidates.
“Following the people’s choice, I task the wise, indefatigable, experienced and popular Hojatoleslam Ebrahim Raisi as president of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote in a decree read out by his chief of staff.
From the outset, Raisi will have to tackle negotiations aimed at reviving the nuclear deal from which the US unilaterally withdrew imposing sweeping sanctions.
The 60-year-old also faces warnings to Iran from the United States, Britain, and Israel over a deadly tanker attack last week for which Tehran denies responsibility.
Raisi, in his inauguration speech, said the new government would seek to lift oppressive US sanctions, but would not tie the nation’s standard of living to the will of foreigners. He believes the people’s economic position is unfavorable both because of the hostility of our enemies and because of the shortcomings and problems inside the country.
In his response, Khamenei acknowledged Iran suffered from “many shortcomings and problems”, but quickly added: “The country’s capabilities are even more numerous. “Fixing economic problems takes time and cannot be done overnight,” he added.
The economic crisis, exacerbated by US sanctions, has become the new president’s biggest challenge, and his main goal is to strengthen economic relations between the Islamic Republic and neighboring countries such as Russia and improve economic conditions. “. Clement Therme, a researcher at the European University Institute in Italy, said in an interview with China.
In the 2015 agreement, Iran accepted the curtailment of nuclear capabilities in exchange for easing sanctions. However, at that time US President Donald Trump withdrew from the agreement three years later, tightening sanctions again, and Iran retired with most nuclear pledges.
Trump’s successor, Joe Biden, has shown that he is ready to return to the agreement and has official talks with the remaining parties to the agreement, the United Kingdom, China, France, Germany, and Russia, and indirect talks with Iran.
US sanctions have stopped Iran and mandatory oil exports, and the economy has shrunk by more than 6% in both 2018 and 2019.
In the winter of 2017 and 2019, street demonstrations inspired by the economic crisis shook the country. And last month, demonstrators from the drought-damaged, oil-rich Khuzestan region expressed anger in the city.
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