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Iran's Khatami Claims Center Stage
TEHRAN, May 28 (News Agencies) - President Mohammad Khatami used the only major public rally of his re-election campaign Monday to vow democracy was the only way forward in Iran despite the heavy price paid by his embattled reform movement.
Khatami told thousands of his supporters, many of them students who see him as a national hero for his moves to ease political and social restrictions that even his conservative rivals are taking up his message of change.
"Four years ago, reforms were seen as counter-revolutionary and anti-religious," he said, shrugging off criticism that he has been unable to make headway in the face of stiff opposition from hardliners.
"Now that everyone is talking about reform, they say I'm not able and that I'm incapable of achieving it," he said to cheers from the crowd of some 15,000 people gathered in a stadium in downtown Tehran.
Khatami's rally began with one of the most poignant symbols of the reform movement, Said Hajarian, the political strategist crippled in a gun attack last year after reformists ousted the conservative majority in parliament.
Unable to walk without assistance and his voice in tatters from the shooting, Hajarian drew cheers - and shouts of "Down with terrorists!" - as he told the crowd: "Myself, I will vote for Khatami again."
Khatami is widely expected to win on June 8th but many analysts believe he will not be able to muster the 70% mandate he got in 1997, a challenge which the 57-year-old cleric said only the people could answer.
"Today, to have more votes, we must not rely on sentimental reasons, but the vigilance and general watchfulness of the population," he said.
"There is no other solution than to establish and strengthen democracy in this country at its roots. The destiny of all peoples shows that democracy is the wish of everyone," he said.
Khatami also sprang to the defense of political dissidents languishing in prison after a crackdown by the conservative-led courts, which have closed more than 40 papers and journals, and rolled back many of his reforms.
"A democratic regime recognizes its opposition," Khatami said, echoing the theme of a nation built on the law that helped sweep him to office four years ago. "Nobody should be against the laws, nor above them."
He also paid homage to the nation's youth, who make up some two-thirds of Iran's population, saying they were an "unwavering strength" that must have "an atmosphere in which it can breathe."
Khatami is to speak again in public on Wednesday before a women's gathering, but Monday's event was the only major campaign rally scheduled ahead of the election, in which he faces nine mostly conservative challengers.
All presidents have gotten a lower second-term turnout since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, and reformists fear the record 10-man field will further cut into Khatami's support and allow conservatives to claim his appeal his waning.
But 23-year-old Mehdi Mehdigoli, a member of the youth wing of the largest pro-reform party headed by Khatami's brother, told AFP on the sidelines of Monday's rally that it is conservatives who will eventually fall behind.
"The conservatives have done everything they could to ensure an atmosphere of unhappiness and despair ahead of the elections to keep people away from the ballot box," he said.
"Their mistake is that they think the people don't understand what's going on," he said. "We need some more time [to instill reforms] and Khatami is giving us that time."
Many in the crowd at Monday's rally chanted slogans in defense of political prisoners, in particular journalist Akbar Ganji and opposition leader Ezzatollah Sahabi, while some waved their pictures aloft.
Several hundred supporters marched away from the stadium after the rally, and state radio said later that an unspecified number of demonstrators had been arrested after a rally in front of government offices.
Meanwhile, Iran's armed opposition Mujahedeen also reported the trouble after the rally, saying in a fax to AFP in Nicosia that, "about 60 demonstrators were arrested." It said that after the rally "a large number students and youths began to demonstrate in nearby streets and chanted anti-government slogans," such as "down with the mullahs' regime" and "release all political prisoners."
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