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http://news.ft.com/cms/s/33742bde-e1ff-11d9-bf18-00000e2511c8.html

Tehran's mayor has Rafsanjani on defensive
By Gareth Smyth in Tehran
Published: June 21 2005 03:00 | Last updated: June 21 2005 03:00

Since he became mayor of Tehran two years ago, Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad has not taken a holiday. He drives an old Peugeot, prays regularly and lives a simple life.

On Friday Mr Ahmadi-Nejad, 49, takes on a leading figure of Iran's Islamic republic, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 71, in a run-off ballot to decide the next president.

Mr Rafsanjani's camp says the choice is between a pragmatist who believes in dialogue with the west and private enterprise, and a hard-line xenophobe who dislikes foreign investment.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's strategy is to portray himself as a "Man of the People" - a sharp contrast to the life style Mr Rafsanjani and his family are alleged to lead. Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's supporters say he is a "fundamentalist", a man true to the egalitarianism of Iran's the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

The Rafsanjani camp is taking no chances: for the election's second round, the campaign has jettisoned mixed parties and loud street music, which they used to attract younger voters but which alienated many in conservative Iran.

Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's supporters have rebutted the charge that their patron opposes the private sector, stressing Tehran council's contracts with Chinese companies for the new metro, its $200m (EUR243m, £133m) international loan to renovate old Tehran, and its talks with European companies on projects such as waste management.

They emphasise that Mr Ahmadi-Nejad's sober attitude to running city hall is a model for running Iran. The atmosphere is focused - and clearly Islamic. There is calligraphy on the walls and women staff wear chadors, the head-to-toe covering.

Mehdi Chamran, the council's chairman, says the mayor's main achievements are "scientific management" of the city's first development plan for 37 years and his "links with the people".

With the revolution, Mr Ahmadi-Nejad joined the Basij, an Islamic militia, and worked as an engineer in the 1980-88 war with Iraq. His administrative talents led to posts in the west and north-west until, in the late 1990s he became governor-general of the northern province of Ardabil. Like many, he was frustrated at what he saw as weakening commitment to the revolution's ideals.

In the run-up to Tehran's 2003 municipal elections, a group of fundamentalists formed Abadgaran ('Developers'), a list to challenge a council paralysed by in-fighting and corruption allegations. The poll ended a run of reformist victories in Iran. In 2004 fundamentalists nationwide took a similar approach to Abadgaran and won control of parliament after the disqualification of many reformist candidates.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?storyID=8852385&type=entertainmentNews

Rafsanjani has best jokes in Iran election text war
Tue Jun 21, 2005 11:19 AM ET

By Christian Oliver

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Beep Beep. "Vote for Ahmadinejad who supports the poor." Beep Beep. "Joining together and voting for Rafsanjani is better than handing the country over to a fool."

Text messaging, often brazen or rude, has become an integral part of Iran's presidential campaign and has sparked a formal complaint from the hardline candidate, who is bearing the brunt of the jokes.

In the build-up to Friday's run-off between pragmatic cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and hardline Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it is certainly Rafsanjani supporters who are circulating the better jokes.

Many of the text messages masquerade as directives from a newly elected President Ahmadinejad.

"Ahmadinejad announces his ministries: ministry of the veil, ministry of censorship, ministry of the Revolutionary Guard, ministry of religious paramilitaries."

Another text message refers to a Tehran traffic directive that allows cars with licence plates ending in odd numbers into the city centre on one day and those with even numbers the next day.

"The odd/even directive is being expanded to have one day when women can go out on the street, while men are allowed out the next day," it reads, mocking a conservative preference for segregation of the sexes in public.

The official IRNA news agency reported that Ahmadinejad's campaign team was furious with the insulting messages and that Tehran's conservative prosecutor's office would crack down on messages that offended candidates.

The text messages normally end with a note to send the quip on to 10 friends.

The messages are unlikely to penetrate deep into Ahmadinejad's support base among the pious poor as there are only about 5.6 million mobile phone users among Iran's population of 67 million.

In the first round, many texts from the reformist camp urged a boycott. These have disappeared as reformists, panicked by Ahmadinejad, marshal their forces behind Rafsanjani.

Earlier in the campaign, one popular text poked fun at cleric Mehdi Karroubi, a presidential candidate who promised to dole out $62 each month to every Iranian over the age of 18 by tapping Iran's oil earnings.

"Hey, lend me $62 and I'll pay you back when Karroubi becomes president," it read.