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| 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 3 of 3
The projects launched then are now 20 to 90 percent complete and the governor's office makes sure people know whom to applaud – especially with parliamentary elections due next March.
"People get very happy and thankful to the president and to God, when they see these projects being implemented," says Mr. Noferesti. "One of the reasons that Mr. Ahmadinejad is in the heart of the people is because whatever [he] promises, he follows it up until it is implemented. We speculate [that] in the next elections the approval and development related to these trips will be reflected."
Looking to Iran's 2009 elections
Aides deny that a reelection campaign is under way. But the men and women who crammed into the mosque for prayers – where most could only feel the brief electric presence of Ahmadinejad since he did not speak – were handed leaflets extolling the "Secrets of the Successful Ninth Cabinet." One black-shrouded woman, eager to see the president, sneaked through a door from the women's section to the men's, before being dragged back by other women.
The campaign handout credited Ahmadinejad with "removing the depredation from the face of this desert province," and used carefully cherry-picked national statistics that ranged from an explosion of cellphone usage to a boost in foreign investment. It listed diplomatic "greatness" and national pride engendered by nuclear defiance.
There was also a photo of Mr. Khamenei and a message saying the supreme leader "thanks God" for a "pious president" and a working cabinet "the nation wants, the men whose sleeves are up and belted for service to the people."
Among those presidential foot soldiers is Mehdi Kalhor, a senior media adviser pressed into agriculture duty. In South Khorasan, he visited several farms, including an experimental irrigation project that makes clay tubes to seep moisture to crops – cutting to zero the typical 75 percent water loss from evaporation.
Ahmadinejad "went through this process of evaluating problems from village level," says Mr. Kalhor. "He can't go everywhere so he sends us to check [on needs], and we report back to him."
The president himself had visited the site two years ago, but no money had come. "It wasn't going anywhere. It was stopped at the gates of bureaucracy," says Kalhor of the project near Bideskan, 100 miles northwest of the provincial capital. "I came back to Birjand and spoke to the president. In 2-1/2 hours it was resolved; before, it would take 20 years."
Such intervention makes good politics, and Kalhor admits: "What's happening in our country is not hidden from ourselves – we know who gets the vote and who doesn't."
But how real are these claims of the president's men? During an unscripted visit to Bideskan to find out, the director was effusive. "It was so fast – yesterday I was called by the governor's office to collect the money," says Mohsen Hedjazi.
The pilot project now churns out 15,000 dried clay tubes daily and it plans to increase staff from 70 to 1,200 within four months. Did the president make his dreams come true? Mr. Hedjazi does not hesitate: "Yes."
Monday: Iran's imperial presidency.
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