A new era for Iran

On August 5th, Iran inaugurated a new president putting an end to the 8-year presidency of reformist Hassan Rouhani and ushered in a new, hard-line government.

The new president, Ebrahim Raisi is said to be handpicked by the supreme leader Ali Khamenei, the man who controls Iran's religious ideology and political ideology. Mr Raisi is a hard-line cleric who won his election amid accusations of corruption and historically low voter turnout.

The new president had vowed in his campaign to continue the nuclear talks in Vienna, in an effort to get US sanctions removed and help relieve some of Iran’s economic pain. He also tempered his usually hard-line rhetoric around Iran’s domestic policy. But, now, a week since President Raisi was inaugurated, Iranians are already seeing a change.

This week on Beyond the Headlines, host Leila Gharagozlou talks to an expert on Iran’s political space and an Iranian reporter about the future of one of the world’s most closed off countries, Iran.