A resounding yes to reforms

By Kesava Menon

TEHERAN, JUNE 9. Mr. Syed Mohammed Khatami appeared set to create history by becoming the first Iranian President to be re-elected with more votes than he won the first time. Unofficial estimates put out by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) indicate that Mr. Khatami could win a considerably larger number of votes in yesterday's Presidential poll than he won in 1997.

There were two targets that Mr. Khatami had to match if he were to demonstrate to his conservative opponents that support for his reform programme had not dwindled. In 1997, Mr. Khatami had won 70 per cent of the vote in a 90 per cent turn out of Iran's roughly 42 million voters. This came to about 20 million votes. According to IRNA, exit polls and preliminary surveys showed that about 83 per cent of Iran's 42.1 million voters had cast their ballots and Mr. Khatami was likely to get about 75 per cent of the votes. So although the turn out figures appears to have slipped a bit, the overall support for Mr. Khatami has registered an increase, according to these estimates. Final results are expected by Sunday evening.

IRNA's estimate about the turn out seems to be on track. Polling got off to a very sluggish start yesterday morning and picked up only by noon. But voters continued to throng polling stations till late in the day forcing a five-hour extension of the voting time. Potential voters were actually turned away when the polling stations finally closed at midnight. If the IRNA estimates are correct then there is definitely a drop in the percentage of Iranians who believe that their vote makes a difference. But the overall figures tend to show that it is the counter-reform camp that has lost heart. Fears that Mr. Khatami's failure to really deliver on his promises of reform had created apathy in the pro- reform camp have not been borne out.

Each of Mr. Khatami's opponents had chosen to concentrate on specific areas where Mr. Khatami's performance had been below expectations. Or they had made promises that they knew Mr. Khatami would not try to match. Even if the campaigns of Mr. Khatami's nine rivals had not been cleverly co-ordinated by elements in the conservative establishment, the separate campaigns cumulatively amounted to a fairly comprehensive critique of Mr. Khatami's performance. Preliminary results indicate that the Iranian electorate was not willing to buy this critique.

The former Labour Minister, Mr. Ahmed Tavakoli, who is expected to finish a distant second, had concentrated on Mr. Khatami's failure to curb corruption. The Defence Minister, Vice- Admiral Ali Shamkhani had concentrated on Mr. Khatami's perceived indecisiveness and failure to carry along various segments. A third candidate had sought to dent Mr. Khatami's support among the youth by promising to drastically reduce the costs of education. Several of these rivals had tried to appeal to the widespread public desire for an end to international isolation by promising that they would improve relations with the U.S.

Unlike the campaign of 1997, Mr. Khatami fought this election with the public having a far better idea of what he stood for when he spoke of reform. The record of his effort during his first four-year term shows that he puts political reform before economic; that the main objective of reform is the democratisation of the decision-making process and that State institutions must be made accountable to the public. Measures initiated by the parliament controlled by Mr. Khatami's supporters and the points stressed in his electoral campaign further flesh out the agenda that Mr. Khatami will try to implement over the next four years. If preliminary estimates are accurate, no one will be able to say that Mr. Khatami does not have the mandate to implement this agenda.

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Section  : International
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