In Iran: Hope battles apathy

Rafsanjani is not known to have the support of supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei, who is believed to see Rafsanjani as a rival.

"This is very unusual; there is no regime candidate, so we are seeing the fragmentation of the conservative bloc," says a veteran Iranian political observer.

Many Iranians say they will boycott the vote to protest conservative success in blocking Khatami's reforms for years, and to delegitimize the result.

Pundits are predicting a second-round runoff between Rafsanjani and a hard-liner, or Moin - in which case those "sleeping" reformists who do not cast ballots in the first round might deliver Moin a surprise victory.

That risk worries conservatives, who are increasingly vocal about how four hard-line candidates are diluting the vote.

Hussein Shariatmadari, a representative of Khamenei, has told the four candidates to lock themselves in a mosque until they can decide on a single choice, adding publicly that defeat is certain unless some pull out.

"Should the four [fundamentalist] candidates withdraw in favor of one of them, their victory will be definite," Mr. Shariatmadari's newspaper, Kayhan, editorialized.

The hard-line Jomhuri Eslami newspaper added its voice in a Saturday editorial, decrying how the current candidates are ignoring revolutionary ideals for their own self-serving ends.

"Not only do they forget about the important things in the country, but the [devotees of the revolution] are ... showing the authorities as incapable, as traitors to each other, and [that they] consider conspiracies and foreign enemies to be myths," the paper wrote. "We confess that we never predicted a day when enemies would succeed in making the faithful fight against the children of the revolution."

Those divisions make the balancing act more difficult for conservatives, who have long equated voter turnout with legitimacy. They also know that a very full turnout - with the voting age set from 15 years, and more than 60 percent of Iranians under 30 years old - would probably favor Moin.

"If you want to make America angry, make long lines at voting booths," Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the powerful Guardian Council, said during Friday prayers at Tehran University, sparking chants of "Death to America" from several thousand faithful. "Cast your vote, as each vote means death to America."

But few are predicting the scale of turnouts that neared 70 percent in years past.

Reformist strategists know they can win easily if reform-minded Iranians decide to vote, and not stay at home. They also suggest that, though Rafsanjani consistently wins high poll numbers, his negative ratings can be twice as high as his positive numbers.

While Nabavi nurses his wounds, other reform camp operatives are trying to get out the vote. Those campaigning in the provinces report a shift of people away from a boycott, and toward support for Moin.

"If we lose this election, it is very difficult for Iran to continue on the road to democracy," says Hamid Reza Jalaiepour, a reform strategist who has been stumping outside Tehran for Moin. "If the presidency falls into the hands of the conservatives, it's very difficult to keep the [political] changes, because the state is very big, and can enter into all aspects of life - it will be military totalitarianism."

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