Ahmadinejad's rivals lost the plot

If Iran's current presidential election were a football match, we would now be watching the closing stages of the first half. And, the scoreline would read 1-0 in favour of Ahmadinejad.

If the current trend of the game continues into the second half, which would be next week, Ahmadinejad could emerge as the outright winner with a good margin.

There are three reasons why President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appears to be far ahead of his three rivals in the June 4 election. The first reason is the obvious advantage an incumbent enjoys: instant recognition.

The leading opposition contender, Mir Hussain Mousawi Khameneh, is a former prime minister who has been out of the limelight for the past 20 years. Almost a third of Iranians were not even born when he was first appointed as prime minister in 1981.

The second rival is Hojat Al Islam Mahdi Karrubi, a mid-ranking cleric in his early seventies who started as one of the most radical figures of the regime before mellowing into a "yes-but" revolutionary over the past three decades.

When Iranians look at Karrubi now, many of them feel that he belongs to another age, the age of the clerics. And, there is little doubt that most Iranians - including those who still support the Khomeinist revolution - now want the clerics to return to their real duties.

The third candidate, Mohsin Rezai, is a retired major general who was commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) during much of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. He, too, is unknown to most Iranians, having been out of the limelight for almost two decades. More importantly, perhaps, ex-general Rezai suffers from the fact that Iranians have seldom taken warmly to the military in politics.

The second reason for Ahmadinejad's success so far is that he has decided to focus his appeal on the regime's core support base. He is not trying to flatter the middle classes who never warmed up to the Khomeinist system. Nor is he courting the rich bazaaris and their associates among the clerics.

His message is simple: this is our revolution and our system, take it or leave it!

Ahmadinejad's three rivals, however, are trying to be everything to everyone. They talk as if, deep down, they were ashamed of Khomeinism and its performance over the past 30 years. At the same time, however, they claim to be champions of the very ideology they blame for all of Iran's current woes. The tactic, known as 'taqiyah' or dissimulation, has a long tradition in folk culture in Iran, but things have changed.

With Ahmadinejad, one has the impression that one will get what one sees.

He speaks aloud while other Khomeinists, including the trio running against him, prefer undertones. The political persona that Ahmadinejad has built for himself appears more authentic than those of his three rivals.

Driving his battered French-made car, Ahmadinejad has continued to live in his modest house in east Tehran, cultivating the image of "just another public servant".

Last week, it became clear that he has even refused to draw the presidential salary, preferring to stick to his much lower income as a university lecturer. The image of the "man-of-the-people" continues to have much appeal to hard-core Khomeinists, for whom the coming election is intended.

However, there is a third and possibly more important reason for Ahmadinejad's success so far. He promises his support base total victory over the United States and its regional allies. His rivals have tried hard to focus the debate on Iran's current economic crisis by hoping that double digit inflation and unemployment would persuade the mass of the electorate to turn up and vote Ahmadinejad out of office.

Mousawi, Karrubi and Rezai have devoted the bulk of their discourse to Ahmadinejad's alleged economic mistakes. However none of the three could hope to sound convincing because none is an economist.

Mousawi is an interior decorator and calligrapher who had no practical experience before being appointed Khomeini's foreign minister in 1980, aged 34.

Rezai has a military experience spanning some 15 years but, again, no direct knowledge of economic matters. As for Karrubi, being a cleric before becoming a politician, he can hardly boast any managerial skills, especially when it comes to running Iran's large and complex economy.

In contrast, Ahmadinejad has a solid record of managerial success as provincial governor-general and mayor of Tehran, a megalopolis of 15 million people. Of the four, Ahmadinejad appears to have a better handle on economic issues, even though the Iranian economy has entered a deep recession under his stewardship.

The mistake that the three hopefuls made was not to focus the debate on Ahmadinejad's potentially catastrophic foreign policy, a policy of constant provocation, reckless bluffs, and picking up unnecessary quarrels.

What Ahmadinejad is now projecting as his strongest selling point, could have become his Achilles' heel. The three must have known that. But they did not take the fight into that arena because they try to appear moderate and revolutionary at the same time.

Amir Taheri is an Iranian writer based in Europe.

At least this time Amir you have a balanced view of Iran! Bravo.
Hussain Ali
Dar es Salaam,Tanzania
Posted: May 27, 2009, 11:57