Word: rafsanjani
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...statistics were heavily massaged and challenged by his opponents, but he had muddied his greatest vulnerability - the stagflating Iranian economy. The real jaw dropper, however, was Ahmadinejad's willingness to attack in the most personal terms. He attacked Mousavi for being supported by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom he flatly called corrupt (a widespread belief among reformers and conservatives alike); he attacked Mousavi's wife Zahra Rahnavard, a famous artist and activist, for allegedly getting into college without taking the entrance exam; he attacked Karroubi for taking money from a convicted scam artist...
...Prime Minister. But he had pretty much disappeared from public view for 20 years, living a quiet life as an artist and architect until he re-emerged as a polite prototype of the north Tehran élite. These were people - like the two former Presidents who backed his campaign, Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami - who seemed as concerned with Ahmadinejad's crude populist style as with his crude populist economics. Mousavi's wife inadvertently made plain the mind-set when I asked her about her husband's art and she told me, "Artists exist at the very top of a society...
...Ahmadinejad's supporters had scheduled a counterdemonstration of their own for the same part of the city, clearly looking for a fight. But it also reveals a deeper truth about the showdown currently under way: Mousavi represents a faction of the regime (whose key figure is former President Hashemi Rafsanjani) that is vying for power with a rival faction led by Ahmadinejad. The opposition candidate is not even identified as a reformist, as such, but rather a pragmatic conservative who was backed by the reformists because he had a better chance of winning. As fierce as the power struggle within...
...polls two weeks before voting and that his combative performance in the televised debates had boosted his standing and demoralized the opposition. They sketch the sociology of the incumbent's support base and why it would support him against a candidate backed by the widely disliked establishment heavyweight Hashemi Rafsanjani, against whom Ahmadinejad campaigned. They don't, however, deal with substantive questions about whether and how the votes were counted. The Guardian Council has, after all, ordered a partial recount (meaning that they're going to recount ballots only from voting stations contested by the losing candidates). And obviously, there...
Unlike past student-led demonstrations against the Islamic establishment, Mousavi has the ability to press his case with the highest levels and could gain powerful allies. Some influential clerics have expressed concern about possible election irregularities and a fierce critic of Khamenei, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, is part of the ruling establishment...