The President appeared well
In one sentence, it can be said that President Pezeshkian emerged successfully from his first live television interview and had the 50 minutes under his control.
Although it seemed the two hosts insisted on getting commitments from him with every question to perhaps be useful for 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 when its head is ideologically aligned with the head and political deputy of this organization.
If so, like the spring and summer of 2021 to 2024, it not only becomes a tool but a propaganda horn for the government, and if not, it becomes critical, or it challenges from the perspective of other institutions.
With this description, it is obvious that the management of the broadcasting service would have liked to interview Saeed Jalili or even Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf as the ninth President of Iran last night, but the one sitting in front of them in Pasteur was neither of those two, but Masoud Pezeshkian, who of course thanked one in the position of Speaker of Parliament.
He himself recalled that just a few months ago, his qualification for representing Tabriz in the Parliament was 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 it depends on conditions and explained that achieving 8% growth requires attracting 200 to 250 billion dollars in investment, of which at best only half can be provided domestically, and the rest must be attracted through foreign investment, which also requires interaction with the world.
With this description, currently, 8% growth is impossible. When they wanted to talk in clichés about the justice appendix, he spoke of gender, ethnic, and regional justice and described the current entrance exam average requirement as unfair and said it will be reviewed.
The hosts wanted to get a commitment from him on the continuation of provincial trips so they could prepare a report in a few days and ask what happened then, but he emphasized that he will not make promises without funding and implicitly referred to the results of the former president’s provincial trips, which swallowed up a trillion in capital and need another trillion tomans for exploitation.
He also clarified the description of the previous government by Kayhan as a saddled horse and said they say we inherited something good, yes, but there’s no money in it. In other words, a debt-ridden government has been handed over, 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, demands of wheat farmers, nurses, teachers, retirees, and imbalances in electricity, energy, and the environment.
These descriptions, of course, bore no resemblance to the situation Raisi described and the book published by the Iran newspaper promoting these three years, with its PDF available for free on their Telegram channel.
When asked about his trip to Iraq, they probably expected him to talk about deepening relations with neighbors and continuing the late Raisi’s path, 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 didn’t say, in Jalili’s style, that if we export potatoes and onions to Iraq, the country’s currency needs will be met. However, he did talk about exporting melons and watermelons to Russia.
Pezeshkian’s response to a question about the trip to New York, the UN headquarters, was also interesting. When he said he would meet with the leader before that, it initially formed the impression that he might want to discuss having a conversation with Joe Biden, the President of the United States, if they encounter each other.
But he did not address this topic, instead saying he intends to talk to Iranians with expertise and capital and invite them to return to the country, provided that no cases are made against them or that they are not banned from leaving if they come.
In other words, he considered the trip to Iraq as a pilgrimage and not politics, or in Ahmadinejad’s style, sightseeing and taking souvenir photos with American soldiers, but he has plans for New York, provided he invites them when 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 it will certainly be asked in next week’s press conference.
The hosts wanted to get a commitment 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 frequently used words were justice, consensus, and vision, and he referred several times to the budget, which must be distributed fairly and that they will proceed according to the plan.
Therefore, it can be guessed that in the press conference, based on this, he will be asked about the assistance to religious and quasi-religious institutions in the budget.
Meanwhile, in this year’s budget, 110 trillion tomans have been allocated as assistance, and the allocation of an amount as large as a third of the development budget under the title of support for institutions and individuals is the point where Pezeshkian will probably face friction with some places, although 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 the excitement resulting from friction.
Pezeshkian’s main doctrine is attraction instead of elimination, which means Kayhan’s attacks have not weakened him but made him more steadfast, and he is in pursuit of justice, starting with the entrance exam.
It is also worth noting that although the hosts used the term ‘Dr.’ for former presidents, calling a doctor and surgeon ‘Dr.’ is more acceptable to the audience, and Pezeshkian does not find it lacking in humility to occasionally mention that he achieved the second rank in heart surgery and is not unfamiliar with science.
Although on this pretext he said his first diploma was in another 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 get a natural diploma and take the medical entrance exam, which he did, while according to current regulations, this would not have been possible for 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 through political and diplomatic solutions.
He is not only seeking to attract investment but also to attract people, and after the program, he wrote on his personal page that for the comfort of the people, he will determine the regulations related to cyberspace in the Supreme National Security Council and the Supreme Cyberspace Council.
In the program itself, he also said he has chosen someone among the various candidates who has a comprehensive plan in this regard.
Remember, 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 people in the streets and neighborhoods do not use this word from morning till night, and their primary concern in the field of cyberspace is filtering, and that installing a VPN not only costs but also makes access to unethical sites possible, and the only achievement of the filtering crowd has been to diminish the stigma of using a VPN.
In the previous note, we recommended to the President that instead of feeling like he is interviewing two people, he should speak to the people through the camera, and thus the best moment was when he faced the camera and, in fact, the people, and said, ‘I am with you till the end,’ which reminded many of the historical dialogue in the debates between him and Alireza Zakani, ‘You will stay till the end, won’t you?’
The Saturday night program, with these descriptions, should be considered a prelude to the media interview next week.
The President did not want to rush into things, and the 50-minute television interview on September 1st was a step towards transitioning to that conference, where the questions will be completely different.
