Economy, Relations with West Are Key to Iran's 2009 Elections

By Gareth Porter, IPS News. Posted December 16, 2008.

But Ahmadinejad is expected to turn the sanctions issue against his opponents by claiming that his government has stood for independence from the West while his opponents from the Rafsanjani and Khatami governments have actively or passively encouraged the European states to increase economic pressures on Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program.

Ahmadinejad and his followers have portrayed contacts by former officials who negotiated with the European governments and the International Atomic Energy Agency with their European counterparts as treasonous relationships. The most notorious case has been the accusation against Hossein Mousavian, former ambassador to Germany and later deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and a member of Iran's negotiating team on the nuclear program.

After being dismissed from his position by Ahmadinejad, Mousavian was particularly vocal in criticizing Ahmadinejad's diplomatic posture. Mousavian was arrested in May 2007 on espionage charges, and was later accused of having given classified information to the British embassy.

Even after he was found innocent of the charges by a Tehran court in November 2007, Ahmadinejad claimed that Mousavian was guilty and charged that his opponents had pressured the judge to acquit him. Although the intelligence ministry said little publicly about the Mousavian case, the accusation that he had actively collaborated with the British to facilitate sanctions against Iran was spread by a new network of ultra-conservative websites, based on unsubstantiated rumors and innuendo.

Atrianfar, the adviser to Rafsnajnai, noted that, even now, Ahmadinejad continues to maintain that Mousavaian is guilty. This is only the most visible case in a much larger plan to portray anyone who has been involved with trying to improve relations with the West as betraying Iranian interests, according to Atrianfar. "There are so many examples of Mousavian-like accusations about relations with the West," said Atrianfar. "It has been unprecedented in this country."

Former Vice President Abtahi expects Ahmadinejad and his hard-line political allies to continue to exploit the charge that moderates and reformists have encouraged the Europeans to increase the economic sanctions against Iran. "Our opponents are trying to weaken us by taking advantage of concepts like independence to accuse us of being pro-Western," Abtahi said in an interview. "We are always being accused by conservatives of being lenient toward the West and granting concessions to them."

Abtahi concedes that Ahmadinejad's ultra-nationalist line appeals to his political base outside the large cities and that a U.S. demand for a complete end to uranium enrichment only plays into Ahmadinejad's hands politically. "From this perspective you can consider [such a U.S. demand] a great help to Ahmadinejad," said Abtahi.

U.S. policies that were seen as openly hostile toward Iran boosted the extreme conservative supporters in the first electoral test since Ahmadinejad become president, according to Abtahi. He cites the George W. Bush administration's efforts to rally Arab regimes in the region against Iran in the weeks before the March 2008 parliamentary elections. "The conservative papers took advantage of that," he recalled, "and Bush's policy negatively affected Iranian parliamentary elections."

The pro-Ahmadinejad United Principalist Front won the largest bloc of parliamentary seats, with 90 out of the 290 total. That electoral outcome probably confirmed for Ahmadinejad the effectiveness of an ultranationalist electoral strategy against his reformist and moderate conservative opponents.

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