Iran has elected Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as its first non-cleric president since the 1979 Islamic revolution. He is considered a hard-line conservative, and though Tehran's mayor he was not taken much notice of during the first round of voting. He broke ahead in the second round, and in the final vote he beat former president Hasemi Rafsanjani, who had been considered the likely winner.
He overcame his lack of national government experience with his image as an honest politician, and his victory is less of a win for Islamic conservatives than a positive response by the common people to his pledges to resolve the disparity between rich and poor and clean up corruption. Iran is the world's second largest producer of Oil, and yet there has been continued social conflict because most of the money coming from the sale of crude is going to religious leaders or the privileged classes. His claim has been that the country should return to the revolution, and in his first speech he said that he would construct a strong, exemplary, and advanced Islamic society. The greatest tasks he faces are unemployment and inflation.
The international community is watching to see what directions Iran's nuclear policy will take, and how relations with the US will be. From the start the Bush Administration has disregarded the election, saying it was unfair. Ahmadinejad is strongly asserting Iran's sovereign right to use nuclear energy for peaceful use, so it is expected that he will collide with the US, which has long suspected that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. EU nations, mostly France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, have challenged the US's unilateral push to apply sanctions and have been engaging in dialogue with Iran, but it remains to be seen how flexible Iran will be. There needs to be active interest and involvement by the international community to prevent conflict between the new government in Iran, which takes office in August, and the Bush Administration, so that the confrontation does not become a new source of insecurity in Middle East politics.
The Hankyoreh, 27 June 2005.
[Translations by Seoul Selection (PMS)]
[Editorial] The New Iranian President |
