Iran: The Backlash Begins
By Robert Tait
AMID THE chaos of confused global weather fronts, uncommonly cold temperatures have gripped Tehran in recent weeks. This freeze provides a suitable metaphor for the rapidly cooling feelings many Iranians have towards President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Just as the Iranian capital has been shivering in the winter freeze Ahmadinejad has started to feel the unmistakable chill of public disaffection. Having become accustomed to the warmth of mass acclaim at a series of nationwide open-air rallies, the Islamist firebrand is now discovering the limits of his popularity.
Criticism was easy to dismiss when it was limited to intellectuals and political reformists. Ahmadinejad countered by resorting to straightforward repressiveness, sacking liberal university lecturers and closing reformist newspapers. But now voters have started to turn against a man whose political strength lay in his populist appeal.
Last month, rising discontent over his government's failing economic policies led to a drubbing at the polls. In nationwide council elections, candidates supporting the president gained just 20% of the vote. Only two Ahmadinejad loyalists - including his sister Parvin - won seats on the 15-member Tehran city council, often seen as a key indicator of political trends across the country.
The results coincided with a political comeback for Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's most powerful rival and his defeated opponent in the 2005 presidential election. Rafsanjani, a sharp critic of the president's strident anti-Western rhetoric, topped the poll in elections to the experts' assembly, a clerical body empowered to supervise and appoint Iran's supreme leader.
But the most ominous sign that the political tide is turning against Ahmadinejad is that many of his friends have started to desert him.
Having built an international status on baiting the West, the president is in danger of becoming a scapegoat for the increasing isolation Iran faces over its nuclear programme - which the West suspects is designed for bomb-making despite Iranian denials.
After months of deliberation, the UN security council last month imposed limited sanctions over Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. This process can be used to produce power. Critics blame the president's strident rhetoric and resistance to compromise for uniting the security council against Iran. The influential website Aftab claimed last week that Ahmadinejad effectively killed any chance of a deal between the country's nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, by declaring that Iran would not suspend enrichment for "even one day".
"This remark prepared the circumstances for the recent security council resolution against Iran," the website stated.
More worrying still for the president was the fact that fundamentalist newspaper Jomhouri Eslami - which often reflects the views of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - accused Ahmadinejad of adopting the nuclear issue as a personal slogan to deflect attention from his government's economic failings.
"Turning the nuclear issue into a propaganda slogan gives the impression that you, for the sake of covering up flaws in the government, are exaggerating its importance," the paper said. "This is harmful for you and your government.
"The nuclear programme goes beyond governments and tastes and is a national issue. If people get the impression that the government is exaggerating the nuclear case to divert attention from their demands, you will cause this national issue to lose public support."
The warning followed criticism by MPs that a conference staged last month questioning the holocaust - organised to bolster Ahmadinejad's dismissal of the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis as a "myth" - had damaged the national interest.
At a closed session of the conservative-dominated parliament, members denounced the event as "inappropriate" and "unnecessary", and said it had directly influenced the UN's decision to impose sanctions on Iran.
For the president's opponents the welter of criticism means only one thing. "It's a sign that the golden age and honeymoon of Ahmadinejad with the people is over," said Isa Saharkhiz, a journalist and political activist. "He is in a position where not only his critics but many of his followers are trying to distance themselves from his stances and actions. His rivals in the last presidential election will have a more vital role in the country's future."
Ahmadinejad left the winter blizzard of criticism behind yesterday for a four-day visit to Latin America, where he will meet President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega, the newly inaugurated Nicaraguan president, and Rafael Correa, who is sworn in today as Ecuador's president. With all three men, he shares a unyielding hostility towards America.
That may be enough to ensure him a warm reception on his travels - but he will find the climate distinctly chilly on his return home.
http://www.sundayherald.com/
By Robert Tait
AMID THE chaos of confused global weather fronts, uncommonly cold temperatures have gripped Tehran in recent weeks. This freeze provides a suitable metaphor for the rapidly cooling feelings many Iranians have towards President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Just as the Iranian capital has been shivering in the winter freeze Ahmadinejad has started to feel the unmistakable chill of public disaffection. Having become accustomed to the warmth of mass acclaim at a series of nationwide open-air rallies, the Islamist firebrand is now discovering the limits of his popularity.
Criticism was easy to dismiss when it was limited to intellectuals and political reformists. Ahmadinejad countered by resorting to straightforward repressiveness, sacking liberal university lecturers and closing reformist newspapers. But now voters have started to turn against a man whose political strength lay in his populist appeal.
Last month, rising discontent over his government's failing economic policies led to a drubbing at the polls. In nationwide council elections, candidates supporting the president gained just 20% of the vote. Only two Ahmadinejad loyalists - including his sister Parvin - won seats on the 15-member Tehran city council, often seen as a key indicator of political trends across the country.
The results coincided with a political comeback for Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ahmadinejad's most powerful rival and his defeated opponent in the 2005 presidential election. Rafsanjani, a sharp critic of the president's strident anti-Western rhetoric, topped the poll in elections to the experts' assembly, a clerical body empowered to supervise and appoint Iran's supreme leader.
But the most ominous sign that the political tide is turning against Ahmadinejad is that many of his friends have started to desert him.
Having built an international status on baiting the West, the president is in danger of becoming a scapegoat for the increasing isolation Iran faces over its nuclear programme - which the West suspects is designed for bomb-making despite Iranian denials.
After months of deliberation, the UN security council last month imposed limited sanctions over Iran's refusal to suspend uranium enrichment. This process can be used to produce power. Critics blame the president's strident rhetoric and resistance to compromise for uniting the security council against Iran. The influential website Aftab claimed last week that Ahmadinejad effectively killed any chance of a deal between the country's nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, by declaring that Iran would not suspend enrichment for "even one day".
"This remark prepared the circumstances for the recent security council resolution against Iran," the website stated.
More worrying still for the president was the fact that fundamentalist newspaper Jomhouri Eslami - which often reflects the views of the supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - accused Ahmadinejad of adopting the nuclear issue as a personal slogan to deflect attention from his government's economic failings.
"Turning the nuclear issue into a propaganda slogan gives the impression that you, for the sake of covering up flaws in the government, are exaggerating its importance," the paper said. "This is harmful for you and your government.
"The nuclear programme goes beyond governments and tastes and is a national issue. If people get the impression that the government is exaggerating the nuclear case to divert attention from their demands, you will cause this national issue to lose public support."
The warning followed criticism by MPs that a conference staged last month questioning the holocaust - organised to bolster Ahmadinejad's dismissal of the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis as a "myth" - had damaged the national interest.
At a closed session of the conservative-dominated parliament, members denounced the event as "inappropriate" and "unnecessary", and said it had directly influenced the UN's decision to impose sanctions on Iran.
For the president's opponents the welter of criticism means only one thing. "It's a sign that the golden age and honeymoon of Ahmadinejad with the people is over," said Isa Saharkhiz, a journalist and political activist. "He is in a position where not only his critics but many of his followers are trying to distance themselves from his stances and actions. His rivals in the last presidential election will have a more vital role in the country's future."
Ahmadinejad left the winter blizzard of criticism behind yesterday for a four-day visit to Latin America, where he will meet President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, Daniel Ortega, the newly inaugurated Nicaraguan president, and Rafael Correa, who is sworn in today as Ecuador's president. With all three men, he shares a unyielding hostility towards America.
That may be enough to ensure him a warm reception on his travels - but he will find the climate distinctly chilly on his return home.
http://www.sundayherald.com/