 |
| Eyeing another term: Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad greeted supporters Wednesday in Ilam Province in western Iran. Mehdi Ghasemi/AP |
Ahmadinejad: rock star in rural Iran
While he is maligned by the West, the firebrand president is adored by Iran's poor and pious.
from the December 7, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
"Ahmadinejad is the best president that we have ever had.… He is an angel, the envoy of the Imam of the Age [Mahdi]," says one sandwich-shop owner in Sarayan, a few hours north of Birjand.
"But still, our town has lots of problems," laments the owner, who was refused a loan from city hall to expand his eatery into a guesthouse. "You have to have a friend to have your request approved. Problems, problems...."
Such faith in Ahmadinejad contrasts sharply with the view in Tehran, where criticism of the president is daily fare. The moderate Mardom-Salari newspaper calls provincial trips a "backward step" drawn from the first days of ancient Greek democracy. Better to improve the overall economy, the paper chided, so fewer Iranians feel compelled to write personal requests.
But the carefully crafted image plays well among the president's core constituents: legions of pious Iranians who still say they believe his promise to bring them a share of Iran's vast oil wealth; and ideological warriors of the basiji (volunteer ideological forces) militia and Revolutionary Guards forces who have profited most from government contracts.
"There are only two ways Ahmadinejad can be defeated," says a political scientist in Tehran, who asked not to be named. "Another [reformist] mass vote or Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Sayyed Ali] Khamenei fully withdraws his support for Ahmadinejad – and I don't see either one happening."
The president, says this analyst, "is getting smarter on how he spends money, targets his campaigns, and at negative campaigning." In recent weeks, Ahmadinejad has lambasted critics of his nuclear policy as "traitors."
"People are beginning to realize he is really messing up the economy," says the analyst. "But the only people [who see it] are the urban middle and educated classes. Those people do not have the votes or the will to challenge him."
'In the heart of the people'
On the hustings in Birjand, national TV shows Ahmadinejad being driven in a modest car early one morning to a poor sector. Standing in the street, people reach out to shake the president's hand and share their problems. He responds by placing his arms on their shoulders.
Another scene shows him in a poor family's house, sitting with a mother as she grieves for two sons martyred in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. The president's body language is pitch-perfect. He sits with head down, hands clasped respectfully in his lap as the woman tells the former Revolutionary Guards officer: "I'm sure you remember the Imposed War...."
More footage shows the minister cutting ribbons on finished projects and breaking ground on new ones. Similar scenes are repeated every provincial visit.
"The amount of projects and development in the past two years is equal to the entire history of the province," says Abolfazl Noferesti, the press chief for the South Khorasan governor, who was appointed by the president. Long neglected by Tehran, this province spreads across the sprawling deserts and barren outcroppings of eastern Iran and was the first to be visited by the president in 2005.
RSS feed
