The President appeared well
In one sentence, it can be said that President Pezeshkian overall came out successful from his first live television interview and had control for 50 minutes.
Although it seemed the two hosts were insisting on extracting commitments from him with each question, perhaps to be used by critics in a few months, Pezeshkian did not step on these banana peels.
It is true that the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is a state organization, but it serves and promotes the sitting government only when its head is ideologically aligned with the president and the political deputy of this organization.
If this is the case, like the spring and summer of 2021 to 2024, they not only serve but become the government’s propaganda horn, and if not, they become critics or engage in fault-finding or challenge from the perspective of other institutions.
With this description, it is obvious that the management of broadcasting would have preferred to talk last night with Saeed Jalili or even Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as the ninth president of Iran, but the one sitting opposite them in Pasteur was neither of those two but Masoud Pezeshkian, who also thanked one of them in his role as Speaker of the Parliament.
He recalled that just a few months ago, his qualifications for representing Tabriz in the parliament were rejected by the executive board appointed by the Ministry of Interior of the late Raisi’s government, and with the intervention of the leader and subsequently the Guardian Council and the Supervisory Board, he was able to participate in the elections, and now he is the President of Iran.
The first banana peel was whether he promises to bring the inflation rate to 30% in a few months, and the second was whether he commits to achieving an 8% economic growth rate. Instead of saying yes or no, the President said ‘with conditions and prerequisites,’ then explained that achieving 8% growth requires attracting $200 to $250 billion in investment, of which at best only half can be sourced domestically, and the rest must be attracted through foreign investment, which in turn requires engagement with the world.
Under these circumstances, 8% growth is currently impossible. When they wanted him to speak in clichés about the annex of justice, he talked about gender, ethnic, and regional justice and described the current condition for university entrance exams as unfair, saying it would be reviewed.
The hosts wanted to get a commitment from him to continue provincial trips so they could prepare a report in a few days and ask what happened then. However, he emphasized that he would not make promises without funds and implicitly referred to the results of the former president’s provincial trips, which consumed a trillion in investments and require another trillion tomans for exploitation.
He also clarified the description of the previous government as a saddled horse by Kayhan, saying they say we inherited something good, yes, but there’s no money in it. In other words, they handed over a government in debt, and there’s no news of a saddled horse.
The hosts insisted he talk about the current situation, and he said the people themselves know what it is, then listed the high prices, shortages, farmers’ demands for wheat, nurses, teachers, retirees, and the imbalance in electricity, energy, and the environment.
These descriptions certainly did not resemble the situation that Raisi described and the book that the Iran newspaper published in promoting these three years and made its PDF available for free on its Telegram channel.
When asked about the President’s trip to Iraq, they probably expected him to talk about deepening relations with neighbors and continuing the path of the late Raisi’s government, but he said his main goal is to visit the shrine of Imam Ali, although he is obliged to have diplomatic meetings as well.
He also did not say, in the style of Mr. Jalili, that if we export potatoes and onions to Iraq, the country’s required currency would be provided. However, he had mentioned exporting melons and watermelons to Russia.
Pezeshkian’s response to a question about the trip to New York, the headquarters of the United Nations, was also interesting. When he said he would meet with the leader before that, the initial impression was that he might want to ask for a meeting with Joe Biden, the President of the United States if encountered.
But he did not address this topic, instead saying he intends to talk with Iranian experts and investors and invite them to return to the country, provided they are not framed or banned from leaving if they come.
In other words, he considered the trip to Iraq as a pilgrimage rather than politics or, in Ahmadinejad’s style, a sightseeing tour and souvenir photos with American soldiers, but he has plans for New York, provided he is sure they won’t face problems in Tehran.
It is clear that the two hosts were not allowed to talk about the revival of the JCPOA, but they will definitely ask him about it in the next week’s press conference.
The hosts wanted to get commitments from the President for 30% inflation, 8% growth, and provincial trips, but he emphasized adherence to what he had said in the debates, and most importantly, attraction instead of elimination.
The most frequent words he used were justice, consensus, and vision, and he mentioned the budget several times, saying it should be distributed fairly and that they will proceed in accordance with the program.
Therefore, it can be guessed that in the press conference, based on this very point, he will be asked about aid to religious and quasi-religious institutions in the budget.
Meanwhile, in this year’s budget, 110 trillion tomans have been allocated as aid, and allocating a credit as large as one-third of the development budget under the title of support for institutions and individuals is the very point where Pezeshkian is likely to encounter friction with some places. However, it is unlikely that the excitement resulting from them will be like the fate of the Lahijan detainee, where they said the issue was over excitement from friction.
Pezeshkian’s main doctrine is attraction instead of elimination, and this means that Kayhan’s attacks have not weakened him but rather made him more steadfast, and he is in pursuit of justice, starting with the university entrance exam.
It is also worth mentioning on the sidelines that although the hosts used the term ‘Dr.’ for former presidents, calling a physician and surgeon ‘Dr.’ is more acceptable to the audience, and Pezeshkian does not see it as lacking humility to occasionally mention that he achieved the second rank in heart surgery and is not a stranger to science.
Although on this pretext, he said his first diploma was in a field close to agriculture, and for this reason, he spent his military service before the revolution in Sistan and Baluchestan in the Corps of Promotion and Development and there decided to obtain a natural sciences diploma and participate in the medical entrance exam, which he did, whereas according to current regulations, this possibility would not have been available to him, and he would have remained a diploma holder, changing the course of his life.
The President, with numerous and mostly educational examples, questioned the claim of justice orientation in the previous government in practice, and it is clear that his main concern is the fair distribution of resources and attracting investment with political and diplomatic solutions.
He is not only seeking to attract investment but also people, and after the program, he wrote on his personal page that for the comfort of the people, he will determine the rules related to cyberspace in the Supreme National Security Council and the Supreme Cyberspace Council.
In the program itself, he said he has chosen someone from among various candidates who has a detailed plan in this area.
Remember that the President is also the head of these two supreme councils, and interestingly, the female host who asked about cyberspace, although she spoke on behalf of the people, talked about governance, while the people in the streets and neighborhoods do not use this word even once from morning till night, and their primary concern in cyberspace is filtering, and the fact that installing a VPN not only has a cost but also allows access to unethical sites, and the only achievement of the filtering group has been to normalize the use of VPNs.
In the previous note, we had advised the President that instead of feeling like he is being interviewed by two people, he should speak to the people through the camera, and therefore the best moment was when he looked at the camera and essentially told the people, ‘I’m with you till the end,’ which reminded many of the historic debate dialogue between him and Alireza Zakani, ‘You’ll stay till the end, right?’
With these descriptions, Saturday night’s program should be considered a prelude to the media interview next week.
The President did not want to jump into the deep end, and the 50-minute television interview on September 1st was a bridge to transition to that conference, where the questions will be completely different.