British Iranian journalist and political analyst
Iran's handpicked presidential candidates are facing scrutiny from the media and social media users for their unrealistic plans, promises, and the false claims their supporters have made about their character.
Most criticism on social media revolves around former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili and his rival, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. Both candidates hail from the so-called “Principlist” or hardliner camp, but their supporters are currently fighting an intense war on social media.
Jalili, for instance, has been widely criticized for promising voters to remedy “hundreds of years of lack of development in a few years” in contradiction to his statement less than two years ago that “enemies” were worried by Iran's progress because it was “near the peak”.
“What has happened close to the election time that we are [now] not only not close to the peak but are also hundreds of years behind, so people must vote for you to compensate?” the moderate conservative Asr-e Iran news website asked him.
Jalili is also widely accused of proposing unrealistic plans with huge confidence. In a televised program, he claimed that Iran would not need to sell oil if it built “ten oil refineries” like the Persian Gulf Star Oil refinery with private sector investment.
Critics say Jalili must be ignorant of the fact that the said refinery processes gas condensates, not oil, and that hundreds of billions of dollars of investment is required for such massive projects. The private sector, they argue, has no interest in such projects and would rather invest in other countries where investment is safer and more profitable than in Iran.
Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, another ultra-hardliner candidate, similarly contended in a television discussion with experts that Iran must be one of the “global producers of the Internet”.
“I wish his advisers explained the Internet to him that the Internet is a means of communication, not a product,” former lawmaker Seyed Ali Mousavi tweeted.
Jalili’s campaign has also been widely criticized for “hypocritically” emphasizing his “very simple lifestyle” because his supporters claim he drives a domestically produced vehicle instead of a luxury car, or commutes by public transport with no bodyguards.
Critics, however, have posted photos of Jalili that prove he has been using not one, but at least three different vehicles of the same make and color with different registration numbers in the past few days. Some also claim his very ordinary-looking vehicle has in fact been bulletproofed.
Recent comments by Jalili’s advisers including the newly elected lawmaker Amir-Hossein Sabeti have also stirred great controversy. Sabeti who has joined Jalili’s campaign and participates in televised and radio discussions alongside him or on his behalf earlier this week unintentionally disclosed information not meant for the public’s knowledge.
All lawmakers are struggling in the parliament because there are no foreign currency to pay for importing gasoline, he said. “Blackouts will begin in a couple of weeks because we have no power plants,” Sabeti who blamed the Rouhani administration for the shortages said.
Critics say Sabeti describes the situation as if the country is in a “state of war” and argue that those from the rival camps would have been accused of undermining national security if they had made similar disclosures. In fact senior regime officials and clerics have repeatedly said that candidates should not exhibit negativity about the country in their campaigning.
Besides abundant criticism and allegations of corruption against him, Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf’s advisers have also provoked strong criticisms in the past few days by making false claims and condescending remarks about others.
When speaking of government employees, Ghalibaf’s economic adviser, Amir-Sayyah, accused them of ignorance and wasting their time for a meager salary instead of running their own businesses. Sayyah had to release a video to claim he was only speaking about “corrupt civil servants” but did not apologize.
