So former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) has just announced that he’s running for president in the upcoming June 12 2009. That’s flippin’ interesting, man. Let’s see if he’s allowed to stand for election.
Don’t forget that this is the guy who told the BBC in 2006 that wearing a hejab was a “personal choice.”
Here’s what my cousin, Karim Sadjadpour, told the Los Angeles Times in an interview:
“If it’s a totally free and fair election, Khatami stands a very good chance,” said Karim Sadjadpour, Iran analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “When Iranian voters go to the polls, economics is on their mind,” he said.
Recall that since Ahmadinejad took power in 2005, oil prices have fallen drmatically. Remember Friedman’s first law of petropolitics: “The lower the price of crude oil falls, the more petrolist leaders are sensitive to what outside forces think of them.”
Other reax since “با عبای شکلاتی” (“The Man with the Chocolate Robe”) tossed his hat in the ring:
Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former Khatami VP, who blogged:
Concerning to it is the first serious competition with president in the election and the entire of facilities are in his hands and despite of all early attacks to ruin the competitors , various powers specially the young generation who think to improve the life condition will guarantee wining Mr. Khatami by their positive behaviors in front of other negative efforts. It is an expectation the Cooperation among main and effective powers especially the best of them to integrate the reform which if doesn’t meet , they won’t have any respond in front of history of Iran’s future.
Also, writes the Times of London:
During the revolutionary celebrations, attackers waving sticks approached the cleric, shouting “Death to Khatami. We do not want American government.”
According to Mr Khatami’s Baran Foundation, the attackers were repelled by his own supporters, who chanted, “Khatami, Khatami, we support you.”
Mr Khatami was escorted from the street by his bodyguards who took him to shelter in a nearby building.
