“The situation will be more difficult”

This result is a little bit surprising. I thought that Rafsandyani had a lot of possibilities to be the winner. The poor turnout should have led to the victory of the new president in this election. Obviously we will witness overall changes in the ministerial apparatus with new ministers less oriented towards reform. What will definitely change: concessions to poorest classes. A real redistribution remains to be seen.
We should not rely on the prejudices towards the ultra-conservatives...Obviously we will be able to see a greater gap with regard to the West. The example of China speaks for itself. A country can develop economically and take another direction in terms of politics and ideology. What do we need the West for? That is the question people ask in Iran. That may seem unreasonable and old-fashioned, but the people are not concerned about that. There is no doubt that communication will be more difficult.
It is possible to anticipate an escalation between Iran and the United States. The Americans have already said that the elections were unfair and Iran was getting away from the democratization undertaken in the region. It seems from now on that a pragmatic approach is impossible. I do not think that most of the youngsters are fundamentally-oriented. This election is about a change of generation, the arrival of a generation that has taken the first political steps in the frontline at the time of the war against Iraq. It is not the same political experience of the revolution, and that is the big difference. These people are conscious that they have fought for eight years and want to have their part. They do not want to be manipulated by the rich class from the North of Tehran which only speaks of democracy. There are different trends among the neoconservatives, neofundamentalists, between the youngsters and old people.