Word: ahmadinejad
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...There is a bipolarity in Iranian politics right now," says Mohammad Atrianfar, a political analyst in Tehran. "The change they were seeking in the U.S. is happening here too. People are trying to unseat Ahmadinejad." There are also plenty of people who want the current President to stay, and Ahmadinejad has styled himself as the candidate of change itself, the anticorruption revolutionary the Islamic republic needs for its revival. But while an Ahmadinejad victory would mean more of the same populist economics and antagonism toward a "hostile" U.S., a Mousavi upset could herald the revival of reformist politics in Iran...
...recent Friday afternoon in south Tehran, an auditorium packed with some 6,000 Ahmadinejad supporters was filled with anthemic music as large video screens showed images of Iran's nuclear-energy facilities and the recently launched Omid satellite - achievements the Ahmadinejad Administration prides itself on. Above the crowd, banners with pictures of the Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khameini and Ahmadinejad covered the walls. (See the photo essay "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Iranian Paradox...
...Finally, Ahmadinejad appeared onstage amid a throng of aides, all male, all dressed in black. The crowd burst into chants exalting the President. Over the past four years, Ahmadinejad has cultivated an image as the leader of the downtrodden. At home, the hallmark of his presidency has been his visits to provincial towns and villages, always highlighting the plight of society's least privileged in his speeches. "We came to make a revolution from within the state," the President's aide Mehdi Kalhor tells TIME. "This was a revolution of the barefooted...
...With oil prices reaching a peak of $160 per barrel during his presidency, Ahmadinejad's government has collected about $280 billion in oil income over four years, as much as his predecessors did in their cumulative 16 years in office. He has used some of that money to distribute cash handouts across Iran to facilitate loans to lower-income families, provide housing subsidies and raise wages and pensions for government employees. "My parents are both retired teachers, and yet they could barely sustain our household of seven," said an enthusiastic Amin Kazemi, a 19-year-old student of software engineering...
...years, Ahmadinejad's government has talked about distributing "justice shares" from the profits of state-owned companies. A few weeks before the elections, for the first time, payments were made to 5.5 million of Iran's poorest. But the President's critics say he has pushed Iran's inflation rate to 25% with his "alms" policies. "They blame us for distributing potatoes," Ahmadinejad said from the stage. "I say you insult our people. They came to get potatoes, but what did they get to say, 'Death to America'?" The crowd roared in approval, and the iron railing in the front...