SHAHRE REY, Iran, 17 June 2005 — From the chic boulevards of the Iranian capital’s north to the drab sprawl of its southern suburbs, Tehran offers a brutal lesson in urban contrast.
But on the eve of presidential elections, Iranians rich and poor appeared yesterday to share the same frustrations over the Islamic republic’s clerical rulers and were still wondering whether taking part was even worthwhile.
Down in Shahre Rey, a drab town on the southern outskirts of the sprawling city, a group of teenagers admitted they spend most of their time sitting in one of the area’s few green spots, albeit next to a petrol station and busy trunk road.
“Nobody thinks of us,” grumbled one of the young men, Mohammad Reza. “We spend all day sitting around in this park. We smoke cigarettes and water pipes. That’s all. What we want is a plane ticket.”
Nearby were two retired men, who in contrast were old enough to remember the heady days of the 1979 Islamic revolution. They said it was a duty to vote, but neither appeared particularly inspired by the seven candidates on offer.
“They’re all the same these politicians,” said one of the men. “All they are interested in is filling up their pockets.”
Seen as the leading contender in the presidential polls is the relatively moderate cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who already served two terms as president from 1989 to 1997.
“He didn’t do much when he was president before,” quipped one of the men, sat glumly on a park bench.
In this part of town, posters of hardliners Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — Tehran’s mayor — and ex-police chief Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf seemed the most prominent.
Mohammad, a 55-year-old street vendor who said his wife had just left him, said he was still pondering the presidential offerings as he worked at the smog-ridden Shosh Square.
“Life here is crime, drugs, unemployment, prostitution. We’re hungry, hungrier than we were during the shah’s time,” he complained.
“What is the point on voting? I was sacked and my wife left me. I’m left alone to bring up two children. I live by selling things on the black market. There is no freedom, no human rights, we are in absolute poverty”.
On the surface, it is a very different story in northern Tehran, where foreigners and rich Iranians live at the feet of the mountains to escape the otherwise omnipresent pollution.
Young boys and girls from its chic neighborhoods have long been in a game of cat-and-mouse with morality vigilantes as they rev their motorbikes, play deafening techno music in their cars and flirt in the streets.
But in this starkly different environment, the loss of confidence in Iran’s leaders was just as apparent.
Saeed, 18, stood on one of the main drags, handing out campaign literature for Rafsanjani. But he was hardly overflowing with enthusiasm. “Between bad and bad, we need to choose the least bad,” he said.
Vehicles covered with stickers in English promoting “Hashemi 2005” or “Hashemi 4 Future” clogged the main highway where posters of hardline candidates Mohammad Qalibaf and Ali Larijani had been furiously defaced.
In the privacy of a garden, people spoke out in favor of Rafsanjani but admitted that his main virtues were that he was “powerful” and “rich” — hardly ringing endorsements and the latter is something the cleric fiercely denies.
Even if he preferred the ideas of reform candidate Mostafa Moin, Parham, 20, was handing out campaign literature for the former president. “Moin, he has no weight. Hashemi, he’s already at the zenith.”
Izad Aghabalai, 25, who voted for outgoing reformist President Mohammad Khatami in the past two elections, said that Moin would “just be a second Khatami”, incapable of imposing reforms over the will of powerful hardliners.
Kamand, 19, did not react when a young boy gleefully lifted up her pony-tail to place a pro-Rafsanjani sticker high on her back.
“They tell us that we can’t wear trousers and our blouses hanging out of our trousers. Young people have a right to dress like that. They can’t do anything about it,” she fumed.
