TEHERAN (dpa) – Iran’s presidential elections next month are seen widely as a one-horse race, even though more than 200 candidates began the fray. Yet one man poses a real challenge to incumbent President Mohammed Khatami.
“I have the support of the youth, women as well as the students, intellectuals, workers and even if I lose, it will be with dignity for sure,” said Ebrahim Asqarzadeh, a former MP and currently member of the Teheran City Council.
Asqarzadeh, 46, became internationally known as one of the students who occupied the United States embassy in Teheran in 1979 yet he later evolved into a reformist with secular leanings.
“The Japanese used to make Kamikaze (suicidal) attacks against the Americans, now they talk to each other. It was the same with us. That era made occupation necessary, now times have changed,” said Asqarzadeh.
The Iranian has been compared to Ralph Nader – who ran in the U.S. presidential elections, taking votes from Al Gore – and analysts believe he could lure from Khatami some of the 42 million people aged over 15 who are eligible to vote.
“President Khatami could have done better in the last four years, both domestically and abroad,” said Asqarzadeh but for the time being he is not willing to say anything more about what he sees as the inadequacies of his former political guru.
Khatami, who used to fight the conservative opposition, is facing criticism within the reformist wing for not speeding up the process of democratisation. Even Asqarzadeh does not deny the rift within reformists arising from frustration over Khatami’s gradual reform course.
“President Khatami’s success is based on his personality and not on the political achievements of his administration,” Asqarzadeh says and adds that the country’s political and economic planning fell notably short of satisfying the needs of the people.
“The brain drain dilemma and loss of human capital we are currently facing is a result of this planning and is far more dangerous than loss of billions of capital,” Asqarzadeh said.
Higher Education Minister Mostafa Moein has admitted that more than 200,000 academics had left the country in the last year. Khatami is also taking the issue quite seriously and has allocated a budget sum of 12.5 million dollars aimed at preventing more of the highly- skilled from leaving.
Owing to his vision of a more democratic and less religious system in Iran, Asqarzadeh expects to be accused by the conservative opposition of following secular trends and he risks eventually being rejected as a candidate.
“I am worried that my application will be rejected by the Guardian Council but such a rejection would show ignorance of the basics of democracy, he said. The 12-man council is constitutionally authorised to disqualify those candidates which it decides do not meet the council’s criteria.
“I prefer not to talk about my standpoints on democracy and Islam at least not before the decision by the Guardian Council, said Asqarzadeh, who observers see picking up at least 10 per cent of reformist supporters’ votes.
It is worth speculating on how the conservative establishment, made up mainly of the traditional clergy, would react, if after Khatami another even more radical reformist comes second.
The reformists plan to turn the elections into a referendum and in the event of victory, they will consider the election results a popular endorsement of liberal changes.
