Iran's Cynical Voters Look at Presidential Race

TEHRAN - "This election is absolutely unprecedented in terms of numbers of candidates and their supporters. [But] it seems the people and the eight hopefuls are from different planets," says Ali Hasani, 56, a self-employed businessman commuting between Dubai and Tehran.

"I have been carrying this big luggage [pointing to a trunk next to him] for years between Tehran and many Persian Gulf countries. To my astonishment, the eight candidates criticize the status quo in a way as if they are members of a shadow government or oppositions based abroad," Ali tells IPS, waiting in a queue for a stamp in his passport that will permit him to reenter his homeland.

Later, Ali serves a guest cinnamon-flavored tea in his big apartment in the north of the capital, populated by more than 12 million of Iran's 70 million people. "Almost all the people I usually deal with in garments are either reluctant to vote on Friday, June 17, or will boycott the poll," he says.

"But here it says this is the freest election in the history of Iran," points out a reporter, quoting a front-page headline in Omid-e-Javan (the Hope of the Youth) weekly.

"Nevertheless, all these colorful, flashy, and to some extent un-Islamic, campaigns are not believable. People in middle-class walks of life in big cities think of Dr. Mostafa Moin's platforms on observing human rights across the country, national pardons for prisoners, and entitling workers to have the right to strike as gobbledygook," says Ali.

Ali's 23-year-old daughter Rouya, a postgraduate student in recycling engineering in Tehran University, says she is voting for Moin. "If we do not vote [for him], we will lose the battle to the rivals such as former president Hashemi Rafsanjani," she says.

"But voting Dr. Moin into the presidential office will not change anything, as the constitution and the 12-member Guardian Council nullify all the reformist bills as rhetoric, as they have done during President [Mohammad] Khatami's two terms in office," counters Ali, the cynical father.

These are typical arguments in Iranian households as the country prepares for Friday's vote. In the streets of Tehran and other large cities such as Isfehan, Tabriz, and Mashahad, girls and boys in trendy clothes sound their car horns as they campaign for either Rafsanjani, 72, or Moin.

Yet for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution, many of the young voters IPS met said that while they will cast votes for Moin, they are calculating that he will fail to deliver his ambitious agenda, and that the result will be riots and, eventually, the collapse of the ruling establishment.

Moin, 54, is a well-reputed pediatrician and was minister in three governments, including Rafsanjani's. He resigned his post under Khatami in 2003, after failing to push reforms through the state's Council of Guardians. Born into a religious family in Isfehan province in central Iran, he is campaigning on a platform of human rights and freedom of speech.

He and former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani are the front-runners, although neither is likely to win the 50 percent needed for outright victory in the first vote.

Rafsanjani was Iran's president for eight years following the 1980-88 war with Iraq. Under his guidance, the country was isolated, with none of the important European embassies open in Tehran, and the treasury ran a high budget deficit.

Rafsanjani was very influential in appointing the country's current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, following the death of the founder of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, and is seen as an "establishment" choice.

President Khatami is nearing the end of his second four-year term and cannot run again.

The campaigning has been interrupted by bombings, four of which occurred last week in Ahava, in southern Iran, and were likely planted by separatists in Khozestan province. Eight people were killed in those blasts while at least two others died after explosions in Tehran, where several other bombs were defused.

On Tuesday, three small explosions injured two people in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

In contrast with the other contenders, incumbent Tehran Mayor Ahmadi Nedjad, 47, is concentrating on "social justice and fighting corruption."

"Rafsanjani stands for modern capitalists and nouveaux riches in Iran, and Ahmadi Nedjad is representing the traditional merchants in the traditional market. Over 60,000 [of his] supporters gathered June 11 in Shiroudi soccer stadium," Hamed H., the owner of a central heating equipment firm, said in a phone interview.

Like many people IPS spoke to for this article, he did not want to give his full name.

"Human rights and the freedom of choosing dress, which are respectively in the platforms of Dr. Moin and Hashemi Rafsanjani, do not appeal to the minds of the poor and unemployed," added Hamed.

Former speaker Mehdi Karrubi, nicknamed a "conservative reformist" by his critics among Moin's sympathizers, is also striking an economic chord in his campaigning. He and his team of economists are promising to pay every citizen above 18 years of age 50,000 Toman (nearly 45 U.S. dollars) a month.

Iran's official unemployment rate is about 16 percent, but among the youth the figure goes up to 45 percent. The average salary for an unskilled worker is less than $150 monthly.

"I will vote for Mehdi Karrubi. Why not? The monthly payment is really butter on my family's bread," says Ehsan T., 50, a cleaner in a downtown office.

Candidate Mohsen Rezaee, the secretary of the State Council of Expediency chaired by Rafsanjani, advocates economic decentralization and political centralization at the same time. He is popular among the revolutionary guards corps, which he commanded during the eight-year war with Iraq.

The three other candidates are: Ali Larijani, former president of Iranian Radio /TV, the propaganda machine of the Islamic regime; Dr. Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a civil pilot and ex-commander of the law enforcement force in Iran; and Mehr Ali Zadeh, the incumbent president's advisor for physical training affairs.

"All are campaigning as if Khatami's tenure and his predecessors have delivered almost nothing and they are coming as saviors," says Lili T., 36, a female expert in graphics.

"No matter if the candidates are striking the chords of nationalism or feminism or social justice or human rights, once one of them is voted into the presidential office, people's emotions will start to deflate and forecasting sporadic riots will be an easy call," she concludes.

(Inter Press Service)