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By Ariabarzan Mohammadighalehtaki
http://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/iranian.studies/PolicyBriefNo.7EpiphanyTerm09.pdf
Iran’s next presidential elections will be held on June 12, 2009, and beside many politicians who indicated their inclination to run for president if certain conditions were met, Mohammad Khatami and Mehdi Karrobi have made it public that they will compete against the current president Mahmood Ahmadinejad in the upcoming election.
However what is missing from all candidates’ and hopefuls’ agendas so far is an election manifesto. By the term “election manifesto” I mean a tangible plan that each candidate would present to the electorate as his election pledge, a plan both political and economic that is concrete as opposed to abstract and detailed as apposed to general.
Historically presidential election campaigns in Iran are mostly based on personality and slogans rather than programs. In Iran slogans have taken the place of manifestoes. Slogans are general, catchy and could be interpreted or explained differently before and after the elections. This could be better understood by the following examples from the recently organised election campaigns in Iran.
A key slogan that was used explicitly by Mohammad Khatami during his election campaign in 1997 was to promote, strengthen and support “civil society”. As a matter of fact it was this slogan that rallied educated middle class Iranian’s behind him. However once in office and under immense pressure from the hardliners’ camp, he provided an unfamiliar definition of “civil society” never known before to anyone.
In a famous speech at the Islamic Summit Conference in Tehran, 9 December 1997, he surprised every one by stating that what he meant by “civil society” was the “the City of Prophet Muhammad”.
While the Western civil society, historically as well as theoretically, is derived from the Greek city-states and the later Roman political system, the civil society we have in mind has its origin, from a historical and theoretical point of view, in “Madinat ul-Nabi”.[1]
If during his campaign, Khatami had provided a program that explained how he was going to support civil society in Iran, he could not easily bend his words and use the term (civil society) in a sense different from that in which it is commonly understood. But he hasn’t and this gave him the liberty of not being accountable to what he says in his election campaign after being elected.
I am certainly not denying that Khatami was a president with a reformist agenda. Instead I am questioning the transparency of that agenda during his first election campaign. When one does not provide people with a written document that explains in detail what exactly you are going to do once being elected as a president, you are in fact making yourself unaccountable to the electorate.
Another instance, this time from a Principalist president Mahmud Ahmadinejad. When Ahmadinejad launched his bid for the 2005 presidential election, His campaign pledges included “bringing oil money to people’s tables”.[2] Many poor working class people voted for him because of his general promise to improve their living standards but they forgot to ask Ahmadinejad how exactly he is going to deliver on his promise.
Ahmadinejad did not say whether he is going to reduce taxes or increase them, he did not provide a fiscal policy to which he could be held accountable. Instead he merely said that he will “bring oil money to people’s tables”. He did not even bother to provide his own interpretation of the promise he had made (like Khatami). In fact after feeling secure enough in the position of power, he denied using such a slogan altogether.
Personality is an important factor in election campaigns everywhere. With all else being equal, candidates who hold charisma have better chances of getting elected than those who are not charismatic. In this sense elections in Iran may not seem that different from elsewhere. Both Khatami and Ahmadinejad did possess some charismatic characteristics that helped them win elections. However what makes election campaigning in Iran different from that of US for example is the accountability factor.
In America Barack Obama was under criticism by some prominent Democrats in the Congress for failing to keep his promise of pulling out all combat troops by next April. Obviously not every president can keep his or her election promises but in many countries the success or failure of the president is compared against his or her election manifesto. The more promises they can fulfil the more credit they will receive. However in Iran it seems that presidents can get away with anything since they are not accustomed to stating their agenda and program in a precise fashion..
Until now there are four people who either directly or indirectly expressed there willingness to enter the 2009 election race in Iran. The most serious ones so far are Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mohammad Khatami and Mehdi Karrobi. The other possible candidate is the former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi.
Now I would like to examine each candidate’s electoral behaviour in order to elucidate the discussion above and put it in the context of today’s Iran..
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has not made it public yet if he will run for a second term or not. However it is confirmed by many of his supporters inside and outside the Majlis that he is going to be the top Principalist candidate for the lection.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the only candidate with a current presidential record . People can judge his policies and their effectiveness as president and decide whether to vote for him or not. In the economic domain his seemingly bizarre decisions such as cutting interest rates below the rate of inflation and dismantling the Management and pPlanning Organization that was historically charged with mapping out long term economic strategies made him unpopular with many middle class Iranians. Giving out cheap loans and affordable housing to many lower income people and distributing shares of the major state owned companies among the poor families, however, have made him widely popular among the impoverished and lower income segments of the society.
In addition Ahmadinejad’s “economic transformation plan” could be viewed as his election manifesto (at least in the economic terms). The plan which includes reforms in taxation and subsidies is supposed to give more freedom to the private sector and reduce the country’s reliance on oil revenue.[3] This plan was passed to the parliament for approval but it seems that the recent decrease in the price of oil and the subsequent fall in the state revenue have brought this plan to a deadlock.
Ahmadinejad’s record as a president in addition to his economic plan can give the Iranian electorate a solid grasp of the next four years if he is re-elected. In an interview with Iranian national television and in an effort to respond to the criticisms made by former president Khatami against his economic plan, he said “those who use words such as “servitude” in relation to cash payment instead of subsidies should say what solutions they have to present?”[4]
Seyed Mohammad Khatami who is the reformists’ top candidate was president Iran from 1997 to 2005. During Khatami’s first two years in office freedom of citizens and press was expanded. His “dialogue of civilizations” initiative was very well received in the western world and his attempt to crack the “tall wall of mistrust” between Iran and America was admired by most Iranians and many Americans especially in the Clinton administration.
However, two years after Mohammad Khatami’s overwhelming victory in 1997 presidential election in Iran his conservative adversaries who had since been in a state of shock. After licking their wounds and putting together a new strategy aimed at dismantling and blocking the reform efforts of Khatami. In the absence of strong reformist will to use the power of masses the conservatives took the initiative, by gathering their most loyal elements inside and outside the Majlis in a formation later nicknamed Setade Zedde Eslahat [The Counter-Reform Headquarter].
Unfortunately for the reformists the eager conservatives involved in the Headquarter were for the most part successful in their mission. It seemed that Khatami’s honeymoon of freedom and reform was going to end soon. After the student uprising of July 1999 and the “mass closure of pro-reform papers” in the subsequent years he became a handicapped politician who could not even protect his own ministers let alone ordinary Iranians. The reformist lost the Majlis, the city councils and the presidential elections to their opponents.
However and despite all his failures Khatami has managed to keep his charisma alive. Many Iranians see him as the leader of reformist movement and put high hopes on him. The nostalgia of Khatami’s first two years is still captivating for many Iranians. Furthermore, he is regarded by many as the only viable alternative to Ahmadinejad.
It seems that Ahmadinejad’s mismanagement of the economy, his cavalier attitude toward students and human rights activists and the way he deals with free press and publications has alienated many of his initial supporters and made them wish for another period of Khatamisim.
Khatami’s Approach to election campaigning
Khatami has always been more concerned with the theory of reform than its practice. After his presidency Khatami became active in two major fields. The first one was to promote his message of dialogue of civilisations among a broader audience. To achieve this purpose he made many trips to different countries around the world and held many lectures in which he was professing the idea of dialogue among the civilisations as an alternative to Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” .
The second part of his campaign strategy was to clarify his version of reformism and explain what his perception of reformism was. In order to meet this task Khatami gave two conferences so far. The conferences were organised by the BARAN institute.
BARAN is an acronym for [Foundation for Freedom Growth and Development of Iran] Bonyade Azadii Roshd va Abadanie Iran, a research centre established by Khatami and a number of his former colleagues after the end of his second term.
However, Khatami’s speeches in these two conferences went endlessly about the philosophy of reform and how reform and religion should be compatible.
“The reforms that we speak about, democracy, civil society, growth and development, all these can be achieved through the religion.” [5]
Or:
“In today’s world the long distance between morality and politics has been disastrous”.[6]
Another important message that he gave was to say that “a movement can only become sustainable if it is derives from the centre of the masses’ demands, decisions and the apprehension”.[7] He added, “There was a time that I did not want to touch on Dr. Shariati’s idea’s because he has many opponents and proponents, however he did do a very important job…he believed that the language of elite must be levelled with the language of the masses, of course the role of Imam in this [discourse] was very important and Dr. Shariati was very successful in this job, students and university lecturers sat next to workers and farmers and all understood each other’s language.”[8]
It seems that Khatami has realised that the language used by reformists up until was no match for Ahmadinejad’s populist agenda. Therefore he became in agreement with a discourse that is both reformist and populist!
However what has been completely absent during all of Khatami’s recent lectures and conferences is a proposal or manifesto, which clearly and concisely states the policies he plans to implement once in power: “A Road Map for Reform”.
For reasons that will be discussed later in the conclusion of this paper Khatami is reluctant to offer a detailed plan instead he is doing his best to criticise the job done by his nemesis president Ahmadinejad.
In November 2008 In a meeting with a number of Bushehri intellectuals and notables he criticised Ahmadinejad for his over reliance on oil revenues.[9] In another meeting in March 2008 this time with the notables of the Bakhtiari tribe in a statement that was received as a harsh attack at Ahmadinejad’s distributive policies he said that “people do not need to be given donations from their own pockets, our society is above that”[10]
To cut a long story short Khatami is more comfortable degrading Ahmadinejad’s record than providing a new policy of his own. It is always easier to react to an unpopular policy in a negative way than to propose genuine policies in a positive way. Similarly it is less risky to announce vague but attractive slogans than to announce a list of feasible election promises. This pattern of behaviour as we see later is prevalent among other election contenders as well.
Hojjatol-Eslam Mehdi Karroubi was the speaker of the Iranian Majlis from 2000 to 2004 he was the founders of the Association of the Combatant Clerics, an Islamic organisation that was created out of the Combatant Clergy Association in 1989. Karroubi left his organisation when members of the Association refused to support his bid for president in 2005.
In 2005 presidential election Karroubi was probably the only candidate who made an obvious election promise. He promised a monthly payment of 50000 Iranian tomans (about 50 US dollars) to every Iranian citizen if he was elected president. Middle class Iranian’s underestimated this pledge and reduced it to the level of a funny joke. Ironically a promise that was taken lightly by many Iranians brought its owner more votes than Dr. Moein’s human rights and democracy agenda. However and despite Karroubi’s relative success he could not make it to the second round. Karroubi blamed election fraud and irregularities for his failure.
After his defeat in 2005 presidential election, in an attempt to fulfil the shortcoming of his previous campaign he decided to form a political party. This decision was made in view of the fact that his former organisation lacked the will and the capability of effectively supporting him during the elections. Therefore he established his own party, the National Trust Party (NTP) Hezb-e Etemad-e Melli . In addition to that he published a daily newspaper by the same name where he and other high ranking members of his party express their views.
For a while Karroubi became an outspoken critic of the reformist era. He accused the reformists who were determined in their political views of fanaticism. In return members of the Mosharekat Party and the Organisation of the Islamic Revolution Mojahedin accused him of political opportunism and lack of sound judgment. They blame Karroubi for splitting the reformist electorate in 2005 and accused him of taking this gesture only to please the establishment and avoid marginalisation.
Whether we see him as a pragmatist or opportunist Mehdi Karroubi has managed to expand his party administration both in the capital Tehran and provinces further a field. The NTP emerged above the expectations in the 2007 Assembly of Experts election and had an average performance in municipal and Majlis elections. These achievements although very modest brought some confidence into the NTP headquarters and encouraged Karroubi to run for president one more time.
Election Campaigning Activities
So far Mr. Karroubi’s approach to the presidential election contest has not been that different from the other candidates. It seems that the same pattern of reaction instead of action and slogan instead of manifesto is repeating itself in the case of Karroubi.
In a meeting with a group of artists and media activists he stated that “it is not possible to protect the sanctity of the society by sticks and clubs, it is [only] through accurate and rational planning that society can be guided toward prosperity and excellence”[11]
It is yet to bee seen if Karroubi is going to practice what he preaches and would actually provide his supporters with a plan for after his being elected. But so far there are no signs of such decision.
Mir-Hossein Mousavi was Iran’s Prime Minister from 1981 to 1989. He was the last premier of Iran before the position itself was eliminated in the amendment of constitution in 1989. Currently Mousavi is a member of the Expediency Council. He is also the head of Iran’s Academy of Art.
As a Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi was very much for state-intervention. During his time in office he expanded state control over economy. Subsidisation of food and basic commodities, expansion of state’s role in the foreign commerce in addition to policies of land redistribution and land reform are all examples of his leftist tendencies.
In the 1980s the Iranian political spectrum was divided into left wing and right wing. Initially the left and right were all gathered in the Islamic Republic Party (IRP) but gradually the disagreements between the two factions became unbearable and ranged from differences over the state’s role in the economy to serious disagreements over the authorities of the Vali-e Faqih or Supreme Jurisconsult. Eventually in 1987 the party was dissolved and the right and left wings of the party gathered around other organisations. While the right wing reorganised itself around the already existing Combatant Clergy Association the leftist faction reassembled themselves around the newly established (1988) Association of Combatant Clerics that was established.
In 1985 Seyed Ali Khamenei currently the Supreme leader of Iran was elected as a president. A year before that the conservatives had won a relative majority in the second Majlis election. Mosavi’s allies did not hold the majority any more and the rightwing of the Majlis was preparing a vote of no confidence to his government. However, at the time it was Ayatollah Khomeini’s intervention and that stopped the rightwing from achieving their objectives.
In 1989 Iran’s constitution was reviewed and amended. One of the amendments was to eliminate the position of Prime Minster. Since then Mir-Hossein Mosavi has retreated from the frontline of Iranian politics into academic artistic activities. His main positions since 1989 were membership of the Expediency Council and the heading Iran’s Academy of Art.
Mosavi’s approach to the upcoming presidential election
In 2005 Mir-Hoseein Mousavi was approached by both Khatami and Karroubi to become the reformists’ united candidate yet he disappointed his former friends and colleagues by refusing to enter the election.
Surprisingly, in 2009 Mousavi insisted on running for president despite the fact that Khatami was already a candidate. In his first statement after the announcement Mousavi tried to show himself as a prinsipalist and a man of reform.
Furthermore, a group of his allies have established an organisation called the Association of Monotheism and Cooperation (AMC) Jameyat-e Tauheed va Ta’avon. Recently they became very active in organising conferences and gathering support for Mousavi.[12] Another step that was taken by AMC presumably on behalf of Mousavi was the publication of 163 page “manifesto” named “The Guideline for Living as a Muslim” Olgoui-r Zist-e Mosalmani.[13] I have to say that for a moment upon first hearing about this “manifesto” I was very happy since I thought that finally the deadlock had been broken and someone had realised the importance of writing a manifesto.
To my surprise however I found out that this “manifesto” was not what I expected. To be fair the document offers an assessment of the socio-political pathologies and shortcomings of the past thirty years. Athough this document is full of preaching about what went wrong when it comes to policy recommendations it does not go beyond general advice.[14]
Conclusion
1. Election campaigning in Iran has always been about personality or/and ideology and hardly ever about election pledges. The notion of manifesto as “official statements of the intended policy issued by political parties by the time of elections”[15] is a strange notion both to the Iranian politicians and the electorate. So far in Iran the documents that were published at the time of elections were more concerned with locating problems rather than proposing solutions.
We know that a manifesto does not necessarily include detailed policy recommendations. “They can be politically quite irrelevant, neither read by anyone nor influencing elected party members, as with the ‘platforms’ issued by the US political parties.”[16]
However this paper’s concern is not over names, instead what is important here is to analyse the nature of presidential campaigning behaviour in Iran in order to find the reasons behind the candidates’ reluctance to issue detailed election promises. Whether we name these documents a manifesto or not is not of significance here. In other words, the concern is over the lack of substance not the form.
2. Among the presidential candidates in Iran there is a high tendency to use catchy slogans and mottos instead of presenting detailed election promises. Slogans can be eye-catching and appealing and at the same time general and vague. It is easier to get away with an unfulfilled vague slogan than a detailed election promise. Therefore accountability is one factor that many candidates are trying to avoid when refusing to provide manifestos that include policies with numbers and figures.
3. One of the major problems with the Iranian opposition parties and individuals is that they are more comfortable degrading the government’s record than offering an alternative policy. It seems that policy recommendation does not have a serious role for the Iranian political parties. This is while one of the main functions of political parties anywhere is to recommend policies. At the moment it seems that reacting to anything that Ahmadinejad says or does is the only thing that the Iranian opposition is good at. Criticising Ahmadinejad is what reformists do best. However what they don’t do is to propose a policy of their own next to any policy of Ahmadinejad that they are rejecting. For example Ahmadinejad’s attempt to distribute the shares of the major state owned company among all Iranian citizens, was despised as unscientific and ill prepared by many reformists yet they failed to provide any alternative policy which explains how to privatise the state owned companies in Iran.
To summarise this part, re-actionism instead of pro-actionism is the common denominator of all opposition parties in Iran and while it is understandable that opposition parties have to define their relation to government policies whether approvingly or disapprovingly, what is not understandable is their failure to propose alternative policies and take the initiative of proposing precise policy recommendations in their own hands.
5. Some reformist candidates are so obsessed with their own agenda that they fail to notice that Iranians’ main concern today is the economy.[17] In the last presidential election Dr. Mostafa Moein who was the top reformist candidate did not even bother to touch on economic issues. He became fifth while Mehdi Karroubi who made the famous $50 promise came third in the race. In my opinion, presenting an economic pledge in the upcoming election seems to be a priority for any candidate who stands a chance of winning the contest.
6. The entire situation becomes clearer when we know that this time even some of the Islamic Republic’s prominent clerics have noticed that there is something wrong with the election campaigning style of Iran.
In remarks seen as highly critical of the way the election campaigning is taking place, Ayatollah Mahdavi Kanni the Secretary General of the Combatant Clergy Association has stated that “When both the masses and elite want to elect someone, they read his plan and if the announced program was of use they will elect him. Subsequently elections can not be won with the use of foul language or sabotage of the personality. Let us suppose that the vulgar party has won, what will they do after the election? Swear at [others]?”[18]
To similar tune Hojjatol Eslam Nategh Nouri another high ranking cleric in the regime has said that “a party shouldn’t be clawing at others and should not always cry the “anti” slogan…another point is that [the party’s] positions with regard to economy, culture, domestic and foreign policy must be clear.”[19]
Finally we should keep in mind that the presidential election is in June 2009 and candidates still have plenty of time to offer their election manifestos or pledges. We are right to be sceptical however, if the history of election campaigning inside Iran is anything to go by.
However if only one candidate proposed a detailed plan, whether in economy, finance, domestic or foreign policy the other candidates will have to respond to his promises and by responding they have to propose their own policies.
[1] Mohammad Khatami, Statement by President Mohammad Khatami Chairman of the Eighth Session of the Islamic Summit Conference Tehran, [http://www.abbc2.com/islam/english/islamwo/khatami.htm], 25 Feb 2009
[2] Mohammad Mehdi Afkari, Conservatives Challenge Ahmadinejad Over Economy, [http://www.groundreport.com/World/Conservatives-Challenge-Ahmadinejad-Over-Economy], 20 Feb 2009
[3] Revealing Details of the Grand Economic Transformation Plan, [http://www.president.ir/fa/?ArtID=10391], 4 Feb 2009
[4] http://aftabnews.ir/vdchiqn6.23nkqdftt2.html
[5] Seyed Mohammad Khatami,The First Meeting on Clarifying the Fundamentals of Reform, [http://www.baran.org.ir/?sn=news&pt=full&id=1942], 14 Feb 2009
[6] ibid
[7] ibid
[8] ibid
[9] A Meeting with the people of Bushehr [http://www.baran.org.ir/?sn=news&pt=full&id=1935], 5 Feb 2009
[10] Khatami’s Answer to Ahmadinejad, [http://www.aftabnews.ir/vdcevo8v.jh8epi9bbj.html], 5 March 2009
[11] [http://www.aftabnews.ir/vdccm0q4.2bq0x8laa2.html], 28 Feb 2009
[12] The friends of Mousavi meeting, [http://www.khabaronline.ir/news-2137.aspx], 4 March 2009
[13] Mir-Hossein is very close to the Guideline for Living as a Muslim, [http://www.entekhab10.net/1387/12/post-22.php], 5 March 2009
[14] Olgoui-r Zist-e Mosalmani, [the Guideline for Living as a Muslim], Tehran 2008
[15] David Robertson ed, The Routledge Dictionary of Politics, Routledge, London, 2004, pp 295-296
[16] ibid
[17] Iranians worried about economy, [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7827198.stm], 4 March 2009
[18] Etemad newspaper, [http://www.etemaad.ir/PDF/87-12-03/etemaadp02.pdf], 22 Feb 2009
[19] Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri, The party must not be clawing at, [http://www.tabnak.ir/pages/?cid=32141], 6 March 2009
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- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 17 March 2009 21.30 GMT
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The night before last was a difficult one for me. A close friend, Ariabarzan M, rang me up as usual and after the traditional exchange of pleasantries, our conversation turned to the Iranian presidential election due to take place this June.
We spoke about Ahmadinejad's "common touch", his incessant tour of the country and innumerable visits to towns and provinces forgotten by Tehran long ago. We debated his expeditious deployment of colloquialism and vernacular in cultivating a "populist" – some might say "demagogic" – aura around himself. We spoke about Mohammad-Baqir Qalibaf, the present mayor of Tehran, and strident critic of Ahmadinejad, and his decision not to run this year. After a brief mention of Mehdi Karrubi's candidacy and his National Trust Party, we finally turned to the former president and most amiable face of the Islamic Republic, Seyyed Mohammad Khatami. I launched into my routine encomium, extolling the many virtues of the former president when my friend interrupted me and, like a bolt from beyond, uttered the words: "Eskandar, didn't you know? Khatami's out of the race!" In that moment my jaw almost dropped to the floor.
Two weeks previously, in another lively debate with a good friend, Ehsan A, and in the face of numerous rumours which had been percolating the Iranian media that Khatami was on the verge of dropping out of the race, I remained confident. Having entered the race, I argued, there was no way Khatami could back out now. Websites and even fully-fledged campaigns, such as Mowj-e Sevvom, the Third Wave, had been orchestrated, pleading with the former president to enter the race to end the domination of the Iranian political scene by the so-called Principalists – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad chief among them.
Khatami, despite his many flaws and perceived failures over the course of his tenure as president, remained popular and nostalgia for the days of his presidency remain alive and well, particularly among Iran's youthful population, of which some 70%, as it is endlessly recalled by pundits and politicians, are under the age of 30. I was honestly shocked, even hurt, that Khatami could back out now, when a myriad of hopes and aspirations had been directly invested in his candidacy, only to be dashed in an instant.
I never bought into the idea, held by many, that Khatami was a mere foil for the sinister underbelly of the Islamic Republic, a friendly face to co-opt Iranians into their own oppression, and distract them from the state of abject toil they faced, day in and day out. I had voraciously read the books of Khatami and followed his every word, including his ground-breaking interview with Christiane Amanpour (1998). With Khatami, I vehemently repudiated Samuel Huntington's much-celebrated thesis elaborating the so-called "clash of civilisations" in favour of the former's alternative narrative, which stressed dialogue and mutual respect.
The fact that Khatami's interior minister, Abdollah Nuri, was jailed and his chief political adviser, Said Hajjarian, nearly assassinated (to mention but two of many examples) were not backlashes against an administration which merely echoed the figurative party line. Khatami was never going to be a Gorbachev-style figure, and western commentators who rebuked him for not conforming to their expectations often grossly misunderstood what was then taking place inside Iran.
Because of my own nostalgia for the Khatami era, I was blinded to the fact that the former president had firmly said from the outset that either he or former prime minister Mir-Hossein Moussavi would run on the "reformist ticket" to avoid splitting the vote to the detriment of reformist forces. Due to Moussavi's own apparent reluctance to run, Khatami felt compelled to announce his candidacy, but last week that all changed when Moussavi entered the race. With few other options available, it seems all Khatami supporters can do is trust in the "Smiling Seyyed" as he has come to be affectionately known.
Mir-Hossein Moussavi, at least in his previous life as a public politician was a man of the inadequately titled "Islamic Left", arguably the most radical wing of the Islamic Revolution, conflating the discourse of Third World Liberationism and Islamism. This faction, while initially prominent, later receded into the background and has, since the heady days of the revolution, greatly mellowed and rather paradoxically emerged as the source of virtually all of Iran's most ardent reformist politicians, intellectuals and political strategists.
Moussavi cuts an elusive figure that flies in the face of the stale dichotomy and standard picture of reformists versus hardliners that figure in western headlines: a "reformist" in favour of political liberalisation and civil society, while remaining steadfast in his commitment to the mostaz'afin or "oppressed" and "downtrodden" underclass of the Islamic Republic.
Moussavi was prime minister from 1981 until the post's abolition in 1989 and effectively managed the economy during the darkest days of the Iran's modern history, on a tiny fraction of the budget Ahmadinejad has enjoyed in recent years. And by many who remember the devastation wrought by the Iran-Iraq war, he is regarded as an incorruptible and resourceful politician.
The problem today, however, is that the legend of Moussavi may have eclipsed the reality. His protracted absence from the melee of Iranian politics, while bestowing upon him a certain mystique, raises the question of whether he will be able to capture the imagination of young Iranian voters. Moreover, Moussavi's views still remain fairly nebulous; voters have less than three months until the election to get to know him all over again. Whether this is actually feasible, with Ahmadinejad already hot on the campaign trail or whether he will be able to muster the charisma necessary to energise Iranian voters as Khatami did in 1997 is yet to be seen.