Presidential elections: the veil and the economy in the headlines in Iran, the age of Biden-Trump worries in the United States

In Iran, the law on the veil is, for the first time, discussed by presidential candidates, a sign that the movement led by women is inexorably gaining ground: the six men candidates for Friday’s election have held a series of debates in recent days – the last one was held on Tuesday on state television, recalls the Iranian newspaper Kayhan -, and they have “distanced themselves from the methods used to enforce the law on compulsory wearing of the hijab, namely violence, arrests, fines”specifies New York Times. These methods are “tactics to humiliate women” as part of a “gender apartheid, like in Afghanistan”, denounces Iran International, Persian-language television channel based in London. “Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Iran’s religious leaders have sought to control the private lives of citizens. For forty-five years they have imposed religious indoctrination in schools, bans on alcoholic beverages, and medieval punishments like flogging for minor offenses”continues the media in exilenot counting the obligatory hijab for women required to dress in a so-called “modest”. Previously, this “sacrosanct law did not even deserve to be discussed” according to Iranian policies, explains the New York Times. But the five conservative presidential candidates said, for the first time, they wanted to avoid overly authoritarian responses, report the iranian newspaper Tehran Times et Iran International. The reformer candidate no longer wants to impose it.

The Women, Life, Liberty civil disobedience movement has become too big to ignoreunderlines the New York Times. The protest began, recalls the American newspaper, almost two years ago, after the death in detention of Mahsa Amini, this young Iranian Kurd arrested by the moral police who accused her of having violated the strict dress code imposed on women in Iran. A video shot in Isfahan, during a rally in favor of the only reform candidate, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian shows “a young girl of 18, with long black hair flowing around her shoulders, taking the microphone on behalf of the younger generation”tells him New York Timesasking the public if they would dare “confront the moral police and all those who control the wearing of the hijab”. As for the reform candidate Masoud Pezeshkian, former Minister of Health, he declared in a meeting, taken up by Radio Farda, the Farsi radio station financed by the United Statess, “We could, at least, prevent the regime from being narrow-minded if Iran’s women, girls and all those who feel disconnected from politics finally go to the polls and vote.”

Power is still locked by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, temperate Iran International, but talking about wearing the veil, in this presidential campaign, is already a victory for women, underlines the New York Times. They represent half of the 61 million voters called to vote on Friday to replace Ebrahim Raïssi, killed in a helicopter accident last May. While waiting to elect his successor, facial recognition software, installed in surveillance cameras, in the street, or on drones, “were used to identify hijab violators, who then receive a court summons by SMS. This is what happened to a 52-year-old Iranian woman”, tell it New York Timeswho saw his car confiscated “because her 20-year-old daughter was filmed driving without wearing a hijab.” Iran International announces that Iranian police returned 8,000 vehicles this weekend that had been seized for the same reason. The government wants to avoid strong abstention, notes Radio Farda.

Foreign policy and economic issues are also hotly debatedthe two being linked, underline the Iranian daily Kayhan and the Financial Times, in London. Economic problems have worsened in Iran since 2018, “since Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear agreement signed three years earlier between Tehran and world powers. The American president then imposed waves of sanctions”, specifies the British daily. The next Iranian president will have to face galloping inflation, around 40%. “The sharp rise in the prices of food, housing, health care and transport, while wages remain low, has plunged the population into poverty,” says the Financial Times. A third of Iranians live below the poverty line.

Presidential election in the United States: the age and mental faculties of Joe Biden and Donald Trump are worrying, before a televised debate

Each camp hopes that its champion does not end up KO after 90 minutes liveThursday evening, for the first televised debate, on CNN, before the presidential election in November knowing that the two men are the oldest to run for the White House, underlines the BBC. To my left, in blue, Joe Biden, 81, Democratic candidate. To my right, in red, Donald Trump, 78 years old, intends to follow up with blows for the Republicans.

Donald Trump is ready for anything: low blows, insults and lies, warns, in the New York Times, Hilary Clinton, unsuccessful 2016 presidential candidate against Donald Trump. Difficult to have control over him, explains the democrat, “he rails and rants to avoid clarifying unpopular positions on abortion, tax breaks for billionaires, and the sale of our planet to big oil for campaign donations,” adds Hilary Clinton. “He interrupts and intimidates to destabilize his opponent but falls into absurdities, then gets lost in bla-bla,” a logorrhea which turns to “l’incontinence verbale” according to the Washington Post. “Donald Trump is scattered, he is incapable of maintaining a straight and clear line of thought,” believes Hilary Clinton in the columns of the New York Times. Last example, which also shocked the MSNBC television channelat a meeting at the beginning of the month in Las Vegas, the Republican candidate told an anecdote about a boat whose electric battery “would be so heavy that it would sink the boat”with a risk of electrocution or facing a shark, which led him to talk about sports that would include women and men, then about illegal immigration. “His mind is wavering.”estimates an editorialist Washington Post. He drives the point home in another article : “its disordered and elliptical syntax is just as disturbing”.

As for President Biden’s collaborators, they want to show him as offensive, capable of counterattacking Donald Trump and also combating voters’ concerns about his ageexplains BBC. To discover the preparation of the Democrat before the televised debate, the New York Times takes us to Camp David, the official vacation spot of the President of the United States. “A movie theater and airplane hangar have been outfitted with lights and production equipment to mimic a debate scene. At least 16 current and former aides, summoned from Washington and Wilmington, travel back and forth in buggies golf to join President Biden in strategy sessions.” David Axelrod, Barack Obama’s former strategist, believes, in this report from New York Timeswhat “the rust factor is real. Neither man is used to having someone just a few feet away questioning him bluntly.” The BBC is without appeal: ““Young voters don’t like what they’re seeing and it’s essential that Joe Biden be tough and tough if he wants to allay age-related fears.” The Washington Post regrets that the media are almost accustomed to Donald Trump’s delusional comments.