eek.
bushman
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AS MAYOR of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gained notoriety for pandering to his right-wing supporters with frequent crackdowns. He closed several cultural centres, turning them into prayer houses, he shut down fast-food restaurants and he made city employees grow beards and wear long sleeves.
He also famously banned hoardings of David Beckham — the first Western celebrity to be used in advertising since the 1979 revolution — in a drive against “Westoxification”. Such measures angered the departing reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who eventually barred Mr Ahmadinejad from attending Cabinet meetings.
He became mayor after winning the 2003 municipal elections when turnout plunged to just 12 per cent. His victory marked the beginning of a conservative resurgence and the decline of the reform movement, whose leader, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, he trounced by a spectacular margin in the presidential election on Friday.
But despite his hardline stance, Mr Ahmadinejad is also seen as a populist man of the people. While other candidates spoke in abstract terms of freedom and democracy, Mr Ahmadinejad’s straight talking on issues that matter to the ordinary Iranian — unemployment, poverty and corruption — and his blunt criticism of the wealthy Iranian elite won him the working-class vote. He threatened to “cut the hands off the mafias” who he claimed control the country’s oil industry.
“He’s one of us” is a common remark made by his supporters, from market stallholders in the slums of south Tehran to middle-class office workers. His supporters and those close to him say that he is a humble man with a modest lifestyle. His campaign film contrasted the glittering mansions of his predecessor with his own small suburban house in east Tehran, where he lives with his wife. He was born the son of a blacksmith in a mud house in a farming village southeast of Tehran in 1956. His family moved to Narmak, a lowermiddle-class 1960s suburban development, where he grew up
The 1979 Islamic revolution gave Mr Ahmadinejad, a young conservative whose fundamentalist Islamic ideals were stifled under the Shah, the opportunity to flourish. He trained with the Basij Islamic militia and volunteered for military service during the Iran-Iraq war, finally joining the prestigious Special Forces unit of the Revolutionary Guard, where he was rumoured to have carried out covert operations across the border in Iraq. He also helped to found the student union responsible for the US Embassy siege in 1979.
Since the war, his experience has been mainly in education and government administration. His website, mardomyar.com — which means friend of the people — says that he gained a PhD in civil engineering and became a professor at the University of Science and Industry in Tehran. He was governor of the northwest province of Ardabil from 1993 to 1997, where he won praise for his handling of the 1997 earthquake in which more than a thousand people were killed, reportedly rebuilding houses faster than people had expected. He was declared Iran’s best governor-general for three years running. But in a breakdown of the electoral results from the first round of the poll, he came sixth out of seven candidates, suggesting that the people of the province were less enthused.
His revolutionary credentials and Islamic fervour made him an attractive figure to Iran’s ideological far Right — he was a perfect candidate for them to back in their mission to regain complete control of the State.
He is also said to be exceptionally intelligent. Despite a poor education he came 130th in the country’s national university entrance exams. As a former guardsman and active member of the Basij Islamic militia, his allegiances lie firmly with the Supreme Leader. Some say he is a devotee of Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, a controversial cleric whose radical hardline views caused even Ayatollah Khomeni to sideline him from politics. But the former mayor insists that he is an independent candidate, not beholden to any party. Although his critics fear that his fundamentalist approach may mean a new era of repression, he has been quick to refute such accusations.
the times
He also famously banned hoardings of David Beckham — the first Western celebrity to be used in advertising since the 1979 revolution — in a drive against “Westoxification”. Such measures angered the departing reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who eventually barred Mr Ahmadinejad from attending Cabinet meetings.
He became mayor after winning the 2003 municipal elections when turnout plunged to just 12 per cent. His victory marked the beginning of a conservative resurgence and the decline of the reform movement, whose leader, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, he trounced by a spectacular margin in the presidential election on Friday.
But despite his hardline stance, Mr Ahmadinejad is also seen as a populist man of the people. While other candidates spoke in abstract terms of freedom and democracy, Mr Ahmadinejad’s straight talking on issues that matter to the ordinary Iranian — unemployment, poverty and corruption — and his blunt criticism of the wealthy Iranian elite won him the working-class vote. He threatened to “cut the hands off the mafias” who he claimed control the country’s oil industry.
“He’s one of us” is a common remark made by his supporters, from market stallholders in the slums of south Tehran to middle-class office workers. His supporters and those close to him say that he is a humble man with a modest lifestyle. His campaign film contrasted the glittering mansions of his predecessor with his own small suburban house in east Tehran, where he lives with his wife. He was born the son of a blacksmith in a mud house in a farming village southeast of Tehran in 1956. His family moved to Narmak, a lowermiddle-class 1960s suburban development, where he grew up
The 1979 Islamic revolution gave Mr Ahmadinejad, a young conservative whose fundamentalist Islamic ideals were stifled under the Shah, the opportunity to flourish. He trained with the Basij Islamic militia and volunteered for military service during the Iran-Iraq war, finally joining the prestigious Special Forces unit of the Revolutionary Guard, where he was rumoured to have carried out covert operations across the border in Iraq. He also helped to found the student union responsible for the US Embassy siege in 1979.
Since the war, his experience has been mainly in education and government administration. His website, mardomyar.com — which means friend of the people — says that he gained a PhD in civil engineering and became a professor at the University of Science and Industry in Tehran. He was governor of the northwest province of Ardabil from 1993 to 1997, where he won praise for his handling of the 1997 earthquake in which more than a thousand people were killed, reportedly rebuilding houses faster than people had expected. He was declared Iran’s best governor-general for three years running. But in a breakdown of the electoral results from the first round of the poll, he came sixth out of seven candidates, suggesting that the people of the province were less enthused.
His revolutionary credentials and Islamic fervour made him an attractive figure to Iran’s ideological far Right — he was a perfect candidate for them to back in their mission to regain complete control of the State.
He is also said to be exceptionally intelligent. Despite a poor education he came 130th in the country’s national university entrance exams. As a former guardsman and active member of the Basij Islamic militia, his allegiances lie firmly with the Supreme Leader. Some say he is a devotee of Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, a controversial cleric whose radical hardline views caused even Ayatollah Khomeni to sideline him from politics. But the former mayor insists that he is an independent candidate, not beholden to any party. Although his critics fear that his fundamentalist approach may mean a new era of repression, he has been quick to refute such accusations.
the times
