Iranian voters smack Ahmadinejad, hardliners in local elections

[BurtWorm]

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1875002006&format=print

The Scotsman Mon 18 Dec 2006
Poll setback for Iran's president

VOTERS in Iran have dealt a blow to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardline president, with early results showing moderates ahead in elections for a powerful clerical body and local councils.

While the polls for the Assembly of Experts and councils will have no direct impact on policy, the West will hail any indication that his popularity is waning.

These were the first nationwide votes since Mr Ahmadinejad, a firebrand populist, was swept to power 16 months ago.

The president's critics saw the high turnout of 60 per cent as a sign of a shift in the popular mood towards more moderate policies and away from the president's ultra-conservative style at home and confrontational stand abroad.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a pragmatic conservative, was trouncing the president's religious mentor, a fundamentalist ayatollah, in voting for the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body with the power to appoint Iran's next supreme leader.

And the reformists, a third faction, were set to seize a handful of seats on Tehran city council, signalling a comeback on the political stage after three serious electoral defeats in three years.

[originalpckelly]

1. Let no one forget that Ahmadinejad is a CONSERVATIVE...

not a liberal.

He's the Iranian equivalent of Newt Gingrich.

[acmavm]

2. Strange, I would have said he was the Iranian equivalent of

blivet.

[htuttle]

3. I think it's important, at this point, for 'The West' to stay the heck out of the Iranian elections

Especially, 'The West' should NOT give the impression of overt or even moral support for Ahmadinejad's opposition. It does not help them to be seen as "Allies of the West' in the least. The opposition has made this quite clear themselves.

In addition, every time we push hostility toward Iran, they tend to support people like Ahmadinejad even more (as with any nationlist population). Many think that it was George Bush's 'Axis of Evil' classification of Iran that led to Ahmadinejad's election in the first place.