Iranian Voters Want A Share Of The Wealth

The nuclear deal hasn’t delivered rewards for many of the poor

Creating jobs, that’s what gives hope”

- Ladane Nasseri and Golnar Motevalli

Aryan, a 26-year-old with a master’s degree in engineering, showed impeccable timing when he returned home to Tehran from Canada. It was early 2016, and a decade of economic sanctions was drawing to an end, boosting Iran’s economy and kicking off a scramble for the country’s small pool of white- collar professionals. The job offers piled up. “Abroad, you’re a small fish in a big pond,” says Aryan as he unwinds in a garden cafe after a day spent drafting investment strategies for clients of the European consulting firm he works for. (He asked that his last name and the name of his employer be withheld.) “Here, each person can be the first to launch something or become a leader in their field.”

The thriving metropolitan upper middle class that Aryan represents is a natural constituency for President Hassan Rouhani, who’s seeking a second term in the 19 May election. The nuclear deal he secured with world powers in 2015 lifted a host of crippling sanctions, drawing $12 billion in foreign investment and enabling a jump in oil output. Economic growth in Iran rose to more than 6 per cent last year, after contracting 1.6 per cent the previous year, according to International Monetary Fund estimates.

Yet with the election less than two weeks away, Iran’s conservative clerics and their political allies are trying to defeat Rouhani by painting him as a leader who neglected the poor while courting international investors. A victory for Iran’s hard-liners could exacerbate already rising tension with the administration of US President Donald Trump.