Ahmadinejad, 48, who has never held an elective office and was the appointed mayor of Tehran for two years, was the young challenger. A former Revolutionary Guard and instructor to the “basiji” militia, who wears a fighter’s symbolic kaffiyeh, Ahmadinejad talks tough toward Iran’s enemies. He promises to reverse what he and his followers based in the military, the bazaars and the clergy view as the watering down of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s militancy.
His foes fear he will take the country backward toward the terror-filled days just after the revolution, increase the segregation of the sexes in public, and bring on isolation, economic decline and a heightened risk of confrontation with the West over human rights and nuclear weapons. Ahmadinejad says such accusations are politically motivated lies.
In addition, many Iranians, disgruntled by the country’s so-called “religious democracy,” wished a curse on both their houses.
“We don’t believe in any of them,” said Kourouch, a 20-year-old in southern Tehran near the old Jewish quarter. A fan of Eminem who works in a carpet shop but dreams of success as a pop music lyricist, he said he would not bother walking 20 feet to the voting station next door because he considered neither candidate worthy of support. He asked that his last name not be published.
“There is no freedom,” said a sun-glassed Ali Tajvar, who had delivered a friend to the packed polling station in the Fereshteh Street mosque in one of the richest areas of north Tehran, but was lounging outside with two friends rather that go in himself. Using an English expletive, the 23-year-old said neither candidate spoke to his generation.
“We need what the older generation had, freedom, culture,” he said. “We do not need the government to interfere with our way of life.”
