More on Iranian campaigning
The votes aren't in and the supreme leader hasn't publicly told people how to vote yet, but some of the candidates are behaving like the Iranian presidential race is a real campaign.In Iran, Harsh Talk as Election Nears
The leading candidates are accusing each other of corruption, bribery and torture. The wife of the strongest challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has threatened to sue him for defaming her. And every night, parts of the capital become a screaming, honking bacchanal, with thousands of young men dancing and brawling in the streets until dawn.
The presidential campaign, now in its final week, has reached a level of passion and acrimony almost unheard-of in Iran...
[M]any Iranians say the campaign’s raucous tone is due largely to Mr. Ahmadinejad’s unexpectedly fierce rhetorical attacks...
Many people say a critical moment was last Wednesday’s nationally televised debate, in which the president opened with a furious attack on Mr. Moussavi. Mr. Ahmadinejad seemed to spare no one, accusing his conservative and liberal opponents of being corrupt.
But the most shocking thrust, to some viewers, was when he... accused Ms. Rahnavard [Mr. Moussavi’s wife] — a respected professor of political science — of entering a graduate program without taking the entrance exam and other, lesser violations of university policy...
To some extent, the invective and the carnival atmosphere reflect a ritual loosening of the rules every four years during campaign season. If the pent-up energies seem a little wilder this time, that may be a reflection of the crackdown on social freedoms that has taken place under Mr. Ahmadinejad, a hard-liner who says he wants to return Iran to the zealous piety of the 1979 revolution.
Still, many Iranians say the loosening of tongues may signal a broader shift.
“This will become a wave that cannot be stopped,” said Saeed Leylaz, an economist who was briefly a minister in the previous reform-oriented government. “If the president can say these things about corruption and not be punished, others will say them, too. This is unprecedented and will have consequences.”...
Labels: elections, Iran, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 6:09 AM
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