Election 2009: Fervour Builds in Iran Ahead of Presidential Poll

Election Fever

Iran is gripped with election fever. With only four days left to the Islamic Republic’s high-profile presidential election, public interest in the hotly contested poll has reached new heights as the four remaining candidates intensify their campaigns. Reports of Iranians taking to the streets in the country’s main cities, rallying for their candidate of choice, handing out fliers, and campaigning across the country, suggest that this election has managed to grip the Iranian public in a way that has jolted parts of the country out of a long period of political apathy. The capital, Tehran, has witnessed demonstrations on a scale and frequency not seen in years. Young men in particular are seen on the streets late in the evenings—in some instances turning up in such large numbers that traffic in parts of the city has been blocked. The fiercest battle is being fought between Ahmedinejad, who stands a good chance of re-election, and his strongest opponent, the moderate reformist ex-premier Mir-Hossein Mousavi (see Iran: 3 June 2009: Daunting Challenges Lie in Wait for Victor as Iran Votes). Supporters of the former premier have taken to wearing green wrist bands—the colour adopted by Mousavi’s campaign—sporting green banners, hanging his images outside shop windows, and openly displaying support for the man who has been hailed for his moderate style and leadership during the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988).

According to a report by the New York Times yesterday, the popular political outpouring appears in part to be a backlash against the tight social and political controls imposed by the current government over the past four years. Encouraged by the electoral atmosphere, the public are taking advantage of the mood to express themselves in an otherwise relatively strictly restrained public arena. To some degree, the loosening of the public restraints appears to have been encouraged by the top leadership in an effort to ramp up voter turnout. Wary of the dangers of low voter turnout, a number of leading political figures (including former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni) have in recent weeks called on voters to turn out en masse in a show of support for the country's model of theocratic democracy, representing participation as a national duty. Certainly given the dismal voter turnouts in recent years for local, parliamentary, and presidential polls, the conservative vanguards of the Islamic Republic are keen to encourage public participation as it undoubtedly imbues the regime with greater legitimacy. However, with large numbers of supporters for the respective candidates turning up at mass election rallies—and in some places reportedly resulting in minor skirmishes—the Supreme Leader is now calling for moderation, according to the New York Times. The security forces have so far kept to the sidelines of demonstrations to prevent fanning a possibly explosive flame.

Televised Debates

The degree of public participation has been fuelled by the intense election campaigns by the four candidates, the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, former prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi, former parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi, and finally ex-Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander Mohsen Rezai. The four have also clashed head-on in a series of six televised debates which has seen an unprecedented degree of personal attacks on key politicians and even family members of officials, particularly by the president who has come under serious strain from the effectively unified criticism directed at him from his opponents, accusing him of taking the country to a dangerous economic and political brink. His opponents have used the televised debates to accuse the president of deceiving the public by making the country’s dire economic situation out to be in vastly better shape than it actually is and for his dangerous foreign-policy style which has intensified threats against the Islamic Republic. On the domestic front Ahmedinejad has also been criticised for clamping down on public freedoms and rights. The most publicised of these debates was one pitting the two anticipated front-runners, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Mir-Hossein Mousavi held last week. The debate was the second of six debates which have now all been held and proved to be a sharp encounter between the two candidates.

The much-anticipated debate saw Mousavi lambast the incumbent for his foreign-policy style as well as his performance on the country’s ailing economy. Mousavi, said that Ahmedinejad’s term had "inflicted damages…and created tensions with other countries. It has left us with not a single friend in the region" according to excerpts from the debate provided by Agence France-Presse (AFP). Meanwhile, taking a defensive tone, the conservative Ahmedinejad said his government had been repeatedly attacked, and unfairly so, by reformists. He also defended his controversial stance on the Holocaust, and said his view had been approved by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Sayyid Ali Khamenei. Ahmedinejad has come in for heavy international criticism for questioning the historical accuracy of the Holocaust. Furthermore, Ahmedinejad resorted to a personal attack on Mousavi’s wife, Zahra Rahnavard, a long-time university professor who has had a major role in her husband’s campaign, speaking to the electorate on women’s rights among other things; Ahmedinejad claimed that her PhD had been achieved suspiciously. The increasingly popular Mousavi countered with a defence of his wife and a vow to instigate change in Iran, saying that the incumbent had created a situation which was "dangerous for the country". Furthermore, Ahmedinejad continued on a tirade, blaming all governments prior to his presidency for corruption, singling out former president and popular reformist Mohammed Khatami and the vastly powerful and wealthy former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Although Ahmedinejad’s outspokenness regarding public corruption may have scored him some votes, it has also resorted to public mudslinging of unprecedented levels. In lambasting Rafsanjani and his sons for widespread corruption and mismanagement Ahmedinejad has been publicly scorned by the political heavyweight who also chairs the Expediency Council. Meanwhile, Rahnavard has come out strongly against Ahmedinejad’s accusations of her professional degree, warning that she will take the president to court unless he publicly apologises for his allegations.

Outlook and Implications