Tehran's 'man of action' mayor keeps his eye on national office

Sidewalks, emergency phone lines

During his tenure as mayor, which started in August 2005, his presence has been felt with projects as diverse as new sidewalks for Tehran's long central Vali Asr Street and the installation of street corner dumpsters, something that has led to a marked reduction in rats and stray cats. He's also worked on city earthquake preparedness in conjunction with the Swiss government.

Qalibaf created another number for municipal emergencies (137) and is credited with speeding up some road and other building projects. He has created a "Voice of the City" radio station and the Tehran municipality website, which, beside doing a countdown of the days until large projects are due to be finished, is conducting an online poll, asking Tehranis questions that range from traffic issues to billboards and public transport.

Under Qalibaf's rule, Iranians have seen a boost in green spaces, with officials boasting at the tree-planting ceremony that 2007 would mark the achievement of 3.5 million plantings for Tehran. The city is buying up empty lots and gardens and has so far created 106 new neighborhood parks – adding to a total of a 1,600-percent increase in park space since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Not all Iranians are impressed

But not all Iranians are bowled over. "This project makes the street more beautiful; before it was so old, and now it is new," says Iman Darvish, an engineering student who works in a clothes shop on Vali Asr Street, pointing to the unfinished work outside.

But Qalibaf is "just advertising," says Mr. Darvish. "He's just thinking about himself [and] only of having more power."

Will Qalibaf make a good president? "No, because he is an Army man, and his thoughts are militarily oriented," says a woman in the shop who asked not to be named, referring to Qalibaf's past as an officer in the Revolutionary Guard. "We need a man who knows what Iranians need. We need liberty – the word itself."

Since losing the presidential race, Qalibaf, who holds a PhD in political geography and still teaches, has been trying to tap into those demands by examining what has appealed to Iranians in politicians like reform-minded former President Mohammaed Khatami and regime stalwart Hashemi Rafsanjani.

In the next presidential race, Qalibaf may not be pigeonholed as a conservative candidate, relative to hard-liners in the field.

"People are impressed with Qalibaf; politically, he is moving more into the Khatami and Rafsanjani camp and portraying himself as a centrist," says Professor Semati.

Qalibaf's politics remain unclear, though past signs point to a growing pragmatism. Qalibaf was one of 24 signatories of a letter, sent to Iran's supreme religious leader Ayatollah Sayed Ali Khamenei in 1999, calling for a harsh crackdown on widespread student demonstrations.

But when student demonstrations erupted again in 2003, under his watch as police chief, "they dealt with that completely differently," says a Western envoy. "It was well-managed."

Also well-tuned is Qalibaf's embrace of a Swiss model – first tested in earthquake-prone Istanbul – to create teams of trained neighborhood emergency volunteers to provide the initial help and then to work with professional first-responders.

"Tehran is really something special – it is so huge, it needs greater capacity for preparedness," says Fabrizio Poretti, head of the Swiss Disaster Relief Reduction program in Iran.

The mayor's office plans to train between 50 and 100 volunteers in each of 370 districts of Tehran. Under Swiss guidance, a three-month pilot training program is to begin next month. Recognizing that 80 percent of survivors in earthquakes – according to Swiss figures regarding the 1999 Turkish earthquake – are rescued by locals who dig people out, each district has a shipping container full of uniforms and emergency supplies, such as generators and small jackhammers.

Qalibaf's office has ordered 100 of the containers and is signing up volunteers.

"I am surprised they have moved so quickly," says Mr. Poretti, noting that the program started from scratch in Tehran last summer. "They are very fast, very good, and very motivated. In the past year, they have been very willing to work."

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