http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/10/iran-elections-mahmoud-ahmadinejad
Iranians dare to dream of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad losing his job It may not be a revolution, but Tehran sees poll as the first to matter in a decade Ian Black in Tehran Wednesday 10 June 2009 19.57 BST If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is worried about losing his job on Friday he is not showing it. Support may be growing for the moderate Mir Hossein Mousavi, his main rival for the Iranian presidency, but the hardliner is sticking to his guns. On the eve of what looks like the country's most significant election in a decade, Ahmadinejad was in classic attack mode yesterday, using his final campaign rally to lambast Zionism and imperialists and accuse the three other candidates of using "Hitler's methods, to repeat lies and accusations until everyone believes them". In a strange piece of political repetition, Ahmadinejad's slogan, courtesy of Barack Obama, is "Yes We Can". Even opponents admit it would be rash to assume he cannot win four more years. His common touch and defiance of the US and Israel go down well in the countryside and small towns, and with many poor and traditional people everywhere. "The president is a good man and fears no one," said Mariam Azarmi, a computer expert, as her little boy clung to her black chador while they awaited the start of another noisy rally. "He has made us proud in the world." Reza Mansouri lives in south Tehran, stronghold of the Basij militia and home to many mullahs. "Ahmadinejad is good for the poor. He's the best of the lot. Mousavi is only good for the rich," said the 53-year-old driver. But elsewhere in this vast capital, the president is loathed for his mishandling of the economy, squandering billions in oil revenue and depleting the reserves with populist gestures. Unemployment of 17% is a disaster, especially for the young. Inflation - officially 24%, though Ahmadinejad claimed in one TV debate it was 14% - has taken a heavy toll. Other charges include domestic repression, the extensive use of the death penalty and discrimination against women, as well as the grave damage done to Iran by his generally confrontational style and remarks on the Holocaust. Many object too to the support he has given Hezbollah and the Palestinians. "We sympathise, but let the Arabs pay," is a common refrain. "We need the money here in Iran." In Tehran's leafy northern suburbs the gleeful chant "Ahmadi bye bye" has been taken up by thousands of Mousavi fans, many of them young women sporting headbands, face-paint and flags in green - the colour of hope and Islam. "Go open a grocery," taunts a slogan ridiculing the president's recent distribution of 400,000 tonnes of free potatoes. Mousavi's is an impressively modern campaign that makes highly effective use of email, SMS and Facebook, but it is also rooted in Iran's national culture: the candidate's name, in beautifully intricate Persian calligraphy, is everywhere. He promises "a state of hope". Though a lacklustre orator, Mousavi is remembered as an effective and incorrupt prime minister during the 1980s. He has pledged to increase personal freedoms and present "a happier face to the world". What that would mean for the nuclear issue, the focus of western interest in Iran, is unclear. But he is no radical. If he had been, he would not have been allowed to stand. Supporters talk of their mounting excitement and some even whisper of victory, if not on Friday - when the winner needs more than 50% of the vote, then in a runoff on 19 June. The atmosphere is electric as Tehran lets its hair down for nightly rallies when cars and bikes roar up and down and young men and women mix freely. The morality police, who usually monitor "bad hijab" or tight jeans, have eased up for the duration of the campaign. Excitement on this scale has not been seen since Iran beat the US in the 1998 World Cup or when the reformist Mohammad Khatami - now backing Mousavi - swept to power in 1997. It may not be another revolution, but it matters. "Even if this is just kids having fun and making the streets their own for a few nights, it's a process of political mobilisation," said the mother of a teenage boy. "After all this, how are you going to bottle up his sense of choice?" Hopes of change do not seem to be wildly exaggerated. "We are not expecting too much too quickly, but just a start," said a green-draped Babha Akbari, 24. Student Setareh Assadollahzadeh, 19, said: "I want Mousavi to win for so many reasons. Ahmadinejad has been such a nightmare for everything." The key development of this election is the apparent end to the apathy which allowed the latter to win in 2005 - 20 million voters abstained. That led the reformist writer Mohammed Atrianfar to scorn a people that "does not think a vote is worth the price of a chelo kebab". Iranians may have had good reasons not to vote. "I don't want to give legitimation to an undemocratic system," said Arian Alimohammadi, an engineering graduate. "We don't need a president as long as we have a supreme leader. He decides everything." Hossein Frutan, a history teacher, felt the same until this week but now plans to vote for Mousavi, recognising that, though the Islamic regime may not change, things can only get better if he wins. "Mousavi will be able to make a difference just as Khatemi did. Before Khatemi no newspaper dared to criticise the government. If Mousavi wins the world will have a better image of Iran after the damage done by Ahmadinejad. The priority is to get rid of him." Saeed Leylaz, a well-known Iranian commentator, was quoted yesterday as saying he believed that 50% of Iranians now backed Mousavi. If that is true, change is coming to Iran. Yet if expectations are high there are also fears that the regime may try to fix the result. Ominously, a senior Revolutionary Guards official warned against anyone trying to launch a "velvet revolution". a..
