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Khatami Needs Clear Victory Against Cleric Opposition
TEHRAN, June 1 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Despite fierce opposition from conservative clerics, analysts said Friday that Iranian President Mohammad Khatami needs at least the 70% of votes he received in 1997, coupled with a high turnout in next week's election, if he is to win a second mandate.
"The conservatives want him to win fewer votes than four years ago. They want to reduce his legitimacy, prove that his popularity is diminishing, and that many people are disappointed," Shahrdod Rahmanifard, professor of political sociology, was quoted by news agencies.
"By increasing the number of candidates, they aim at dispersing the votes, but this may rebound against them by triggering a higher turnout," he added.
IRNA, the Iranian state news agency, reported online that Iran's conservatives have turned the June 8th elections into "an unjust duel" in which nine candidates are standing against the "spokesman" of reforms (a reference to Khatami).
Gholam-Reza Ansari, a member of the founding board of the Association of Deputies of Former Parliaments, charged that the nine candidates were spreading the "malignant virus of dismay" among Iranians.
They were also questioning the performance of the "reform" government and the "achievements of the [Islamic] system" over the past 20 years, Ansari said.
"The anti-reform wing could not dare to introduce a candidate, but has now entered the race with nine destructive attitudes," he added.
With a population explosion that has taken place during Khatami's first four-year term, he is estimated to need 22 million votes this time around, rather than 20 million he received in 1997, to proportionately repeat his success.
Khatami seems unworried by possible failure, as his adversaries hope to take advantage of a general sense of disappointment, particularly with regard to his economic and social achievements.
Almost all of the candidates championed by the conservative clergy are campaigning on a strategy based on a criticism of Khatami's economic record in office.
They, however, are pledging to continue the president's political policies, which have won him large credibility and popularity inside Iran, as well as abroad, IRNA reported.
Ahmad Tavakoli, a former employment minister who could come in second in polling, is putting the boot in.
"In spite of Khatami's remarkable services to the system by reviving pure revolutionary slogans such as freedom, human dignity…etc, his failing to comply with the slogans has discouraged the nation," he said in an interview published Thursday in the daily Tehran Times.
"This suggestion of discouragement and lack of interest could lead to fewer votes for Khatami," said political scientist Khosro Abadi.
Meanwhile, a top conservative Iranian cleric blasted the Khatami's cultural reforms Friday, saying they were tempting young people towards drugs and sex, and away from the nation's Islamic values, the French news agency AFP reported.
"Reformists keep young people from going to Qur'an class and draw them towards cultural centers where girls and boys have illegal relations in the name of culture," Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi said in a prayer sermon.
He charged that these centers sell "drugs and perverted video cassettes rarely found even in Europe, and at prices cheaper than blank videotapes," adding that many of the tapes had the approval of Khatami's culture ministry.
It iss not clear as to how Yazdi possesses such deep knowledge concerning these "activities" and videotapes.
Yazdi, considered one of the backbones of the conservative movement which has stymied much of the president's agenda of liberalizing reforms, said the ministry was also keeping the nation's young away from the "right path".
Khatami's reforms have regularly been attacked by conservatives for being anti-Islamic, and his popular former culture minister, Ataollah Mohajerani, resigned last year after fierce criticism from the president's opponents.
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