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The dispute has exposed a deep rift in Iranian society. (Reuters) |
CAIRO — The ongoing turmoil over Iran presidential elections has exposed a society torn between two powerful sides of the political spectrum each claiming to represent the true soul of the Islamic revolution.
"One side wants a gradual evolution of democratic institutions and a more democratic reading of Islamic institutions," Kavous Seyed-Emami, a political science professor at Imam Sadeq University in Tehran, told the New York Times on Sunday, June 21.
"The other side is for a populist and more or less authoritarian reading of Islam."
Iran has been gripped by turmoil since last week's presidential elections, which incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won in landslide.
His reformist rival Mir Hossein Mousavi has challenged the results and is encouraging his supporters to protest and demand the cancellation of the results.
Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei stepped to the forefront of the crisis on Friday, warning of "chaos" if the mass protests in Tehran and other Iranian cities do not end.
"Those politicians who somehow have influence on people should be very careful about their behavior if they act in an extremist manner.
"This extremism will reach a sensitive level which they will not be able to contain. They will be responsible for the blood, violence and chaos," he warned.
In response to the speech posted on his website, Mousavi denied working against the interests of the Islamic republic.
He insisted he was a reformist who believes in the principles of the Islamic revolution.
"If this huge volume of cheating and changing the votes...which has hurt people's trust is presented as the very evidence of the lack of cheating, then it will butcher the republican aspect of the system and the idea that Islam is incompatible with a republic will be proven."
Majority
Iranians are not only divided on the election results and who represent the true soul of the revolution, but also on who better represents the Iranian people.
"Ahmadinejad belongs to all the people, not just one group," Muhammad Ali, a 49-year English teacher and a supporter of the president, told the New York Times.
"But Mousavi and the others, they are just from a narrow sector."
Proponents see Ahmadinejad as the first president to take care of Iran’s poor and working class, as stipulated by the revolution.
They also admire his nationalist rhetoric and his firm stance in confronting the West.
Opposition supports could not disagree more.
"Look who supports Ahmadinejad, it’s just sectarian groups, a minority," insists, a supporter for Mousavi.
Tehran was tense Sunday after thousands clashed with police the day earlier, defying Khamenei's ban on protests.
Iranian state television said that 10 people were killed and more than 100 were wounded in Saturday clashes.
Experts say the opposition see themselves as a natural growth from the more conservative views that founded the Islamic Republic to a more democratic style of governance.
For them, a defining moment came in 1997 when reformist Mohammad Khatami won the presidency in a landslide.
His broad victory margin — which was repeated in 2001 — still feeds their sense that they are the country’s true majority.
"They thought they could do anything to this country, that we were like clay," Leylaz Saeed, an economist and a supporter of Moussavi, told The Times.
"But we have proved this civilization is much bigger than that. They realized they are riding the back of a whale, a very big whale."
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