Iranians worry that their new government is inept

IT WAS FITTING that Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s new president, spent the first working day of his government visiting a cemetery, since he had helped orchestrate the mass execution of political prisoners in the 1980s. The setting also fitted the country’s glum mood. Since Mr Raisi’s victory in a rigged election on June 18th, cases of covid-19 in Iran have spiked. The daily death toll is among the highest in the world.Most Iranians blame the country’s (unelected) clerical regime. In January the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, banned the import of Western vaccines because America is “untrustworthy”. He later backtracked, but the roll-out has been too slow to help stem the Delta variant.