Iran: "No confidence" in Ahmadinejad among the electorate
Voting in the presidential ballot is drawing to a close. Local sources tell AsiaNews: the Tehran mayor has "little experience in foreign policy but our country depends on this"
Teheran (AsiaNews) Experience in foreign policy may be the trump card of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the presidential ballot which pits him against Tehran mayor
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. A few hours before voting for the new Iranian president closed, local sources told AsiaNews that "a total lack of confidence" in the conservative Ahmadinejad "who lacks any kind of experience in foreign relations" is the prevalent feeling among the electorate. Of the two candidates who got through the first electoral round on 17 June, former president Rafsanjani, "with the experience of a head of State behind him", seems to be the obvious choice. "Our future depends on foreign policy: how much faith we manage to inspire in foreigners and how much our government and people succeed in opposing the anti-western propaganda promoted in mosques," said an employee in the tourist sector who preferred to remain anonymous. And this, according to the source, is what sustains and feeds the excessive power of Guardians of the Revolution. "There is no longer the need for this organization," he said. "People are aware of this, but there is no organized opposition and the Guardians control too many aspects of the country's economic, political and social life." As long as the mosques continue to make propaganda against the Great Satan to give people the idea of an enemy to fear and defend against, the Guardians will continue to lead the country.
In the voting, however, the two candidates seem to be head-to-head in what is the first presidential ballot in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Seventy-year-old Rafsanjani hopes to regain the presidency he held from 1989 to 1997; he presented himself as a liberal with the will to push ahead with reforms of President Mohammed Khatami, who made social regulations less rigid and promoted the thawing of relations with the west. The ultra-conservative, Ahmadinejad, 49 years, has fielded himself as promoting a more severe application of Islamic laws in society and a tougher policy towards the west. The huge classes of poor, unemployed and marginalized people who have not benefited from as yet timid economic reforms in recent years should range themselves on his side.
.png)
