Iran Elections -- Ahmadinejad Wins With an Anti-Globalism Message

MSNBC reports:

Hard-liner on way to winning Iran presidency

Aides to ex-President Rafsanjani concede defeat to Ahmadinejad

TEHRAN, Iran - Hard-line candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was rolling toward a landslide victory in Iran’s presidential election, officials in his opponent’s campaign acknowledged Saturday. The result would be an upset win for a man reformers fear will restrict freedoms won in past years.

Read it here.

Meanwhile AP reports:

Reform-Minded Candidate Leads in Iran

Read it here.

UPDATE:

It appears that AP's report was based on wishful thinking. The Times reports:

THE ultra-conservative Mayor of Tehran coasted to a shock victory in Iran’s presidential elections last night, a development that threatens to stifle the social reforms initiated by his predecessor and set his country on a new collision course with the West.

With more than 80 per cent of the votes counted, election officials said that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 49, held a commanding lead of 61 per cent over his reformist rival, Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 70.

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The Interior Ministry declared Mr Ahmadinejad the winner. “Poor provinces have voted massively for Ahmadinejad,” an unnamed ministry official said.

So that's that. The hardliners won and won big.

What does that mean? The Times article contains some clues.

1) First of all young people did not vote in large numbers. To some extent this was a conscious boycott to protest the narrow range of candidates, but it also was part of a general disaffection of Iranian youth from the political process as a whole. The blogosphere hailed the boycott as an expession of revolutionary potential, but all it accomplished was to draw support away from moderate candidates who might have blocked the hard-liners' triumph.

2) Turnout was low, in part because of youth disaffection.

Although polls were extended by four hours, turnout was lower than last week. Officials said that 22 million, or 47 per cent, had voted, well down on the turnout of 63 per cent in the first round a week ago.

This meant that relatively small, but well organized groups could have a major impact on the outcome of the election.

3) Although Ahmadinejad is routinely described in the MSM as a "hard-line conservative" he is not. He has the strong backing of religious conservatives, but also,

has captured the attention of the Iranian poor with his ascetic message of socialist-style economic reform and cultural discipline.

4) Ahmadinejad's anti-westernism also sold well.

His campaigning has been a stroke of genius. The slick, Western-style campaigns of the other candidates backfired, alienating working-class voters who were not impressed by colourful posters and abstract talk of modernisation.

In contrast, Mr Ahmadinejad played up his humble origins and sold himself as a man of the people.

Campaign leaflets showed him sitting cross-legged on a Persian rug eating a modest meal of bread and cheese promising to solve poverty, unemployment and corruption.

So he's a populist, socialist, religious conservative who addresses the concerns of the nation's poor rather than the pro-western aspirations of the nation's youth. I think that his election signals a reaction, much like what we have seen in Europe recently and in some Democratic Party propaganda in this country, against globalization. In electing Ahmadinejad Iran is turning its back on the west and on the cultural and economic imperatives associated with it.

The Times provides a quote from an Ahmadinejad supporter that sums it up.

“We need a fundamentalist running the country,” said Ali, 28, a university teacher. “We have corruption and many cultural problems here. The US cultural attack in Iran, using the internet and satellite TV has caused many difficulties. We need Ahmadinejad to put us back in place.”

Interesting.

Read the Times piece here.

BBC reinforces the Times conclusions:

Iranians have voted not so much on [Ahmadinejad's] ideological position - some of them have overlooked that in a way.

It was his appeal to the poor that seems to be the secret to Mr Ahmadinejad's success. Despite Iran's huge oil wealth, the country has an unemployment problem and a big gap between rich and poor.

People see a lot of consumerism, very conspicuous spending in Tehran among the elite, but they do not themselves see the results of the country's oil boom.

The vote seems to have been one against the status quo - a sign of deep economic frustration.

Mr Rafsanjani is seen as an establishment figure, a senior cleric who has always been at the top of the revolutionary elite. Instead Iranians have chosen an alternative, younger man who talks in the revolutionary slogans of redistributing the country's oil wealth, re-nationalising the assets.

But for liberals, Mr Ahmadinejad's ascent to power is worrying. It is expected he will want to reverse some of the social freedoms introduced by the reformists and take a harder line on nuclear negotiations with the West.

His victory now puts all the organs of state in the hands of the hardliners.

Very interesting mixture -- populism, radical socialism, and religious reaction. What they all have in common is a rejection of western liberalism, secularism, and bourgeois culture. It's an anti-globalist message. Yup!

Read the BBC piece here.