Shackled Khatami still carries Iranians' hopes
By Paul Taylor
ISFAHAN, Iran (Reuters): "They don't let him do anything. But I'll vote for him anyway."
From the ancient covered bazaar of this dazzling central Iranian city to the giant university campus, from the Internet cafes to the turquoise-tiled mosques, the verdict on President Mohammad Khatami's first term of office is near unanimous.
As Khatami campaigns for re-election on June 8, he carries on his slender shoulders the same hopes for greater democracy, social and cultural freedom and economic development that swept him to office in a surprise landslide in 1997.
"If 20 million people turn out to vote for him again, they will have to let him carry out more reforms," said Maryam, a 20- year-old physics student at Isfahan University.
"They" are hardline Muslim clerics who have closed some 40 reformist newspapers and imprisoned dozens of journalists, intellectuals and dissident clergymen in a backlash since reformers won parliamentary elections last year.
Although few are willing to name him, "they" also include Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who controls the judiciary, the security forces, state broadcasting and opaque foundations that own swathes of the economy.
"Unfortunately, people believe these newspaper closures and arrests by the judiciary were ordered by the leader. So the judiciary is weakening people's support for the leader," said Fazlollah Salawati, 65, a university teacher and one of the fathers of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Isfahan.
Mehdi Saberi, 26, a freshly-graduated civil engineer and one of the new generation of political activists, put it more bluntly: "The aura of sanctity that existed around the leader is gradually vanishing."
Despite Khatami's recent setbacks at the hands of his conservative opponents, the people of Isfahan say the mild- mannered liberal cleric has brought greater freedom of expression, loosened intrusive Islamic social controls on the young and improved their country's standing in the world.
To judge from the mood in this former Persian capital, a bustling garden city of three million planted in a spectacular desert landscape, Iran's political spring is far from over.
It is merely catching its breath.
"They closed 40 papers but we opened another 67. It's a sort of game," says Ali Mazrouei, one of Isfahan's five reformist members of parliament, who is also chairman of the Association of Iranian Journalists.
"There are very few (political) prisoners, really. It is the price we have to pay for reform, but compared to other countries, it's a low cost," he told Reuters in an interview.
The air of self-confidence that has grown during Khatami's four years in office is evident everywhere -- from the aggressive questions that citizens ask their local MPs at a public meeting to the relaxed way in which students, bazaar traders or taxi drivers express their political views in public to a foreigner.
In scenes hard to imagine in many Middle Eastern countries, debate erupts spontaneously, diversity of opinion is encouraged and the talk is very frank.
"Why haven't you done anything to get Ayatollah (Hossein- Ali) Montazeri released?" one questioner asked local MPs at a rally of some 600 supporters of the pro-Khatami Islamic Iran Participation Front.
A couple of years ago, any public mention of Iran's leading dissident cleric, under house arrest since 1997 for questioning Khamenei's powers as supreme leader, was taboo.
Other questions fired at the podium included one demanding to know why Khatami had been silent when his own supporters were jailed, another calling the constitution a "religious dictatorship" and a third alleging widespread corruption and rent-seeking among Iran's clerical rulers and their families.
"They ask 'why are you silent?'. Because we want to stay alive," Mazrouei told the rally.
"But if we want to eliminate dictatorship and corruption, we have to be committed and prepared to pay a price. If we do not reform, the cost to society will be much higher," he said.
In the covered bazaar off Isfahan's arched Imam Square, merchants contrast the slow pace of economic reform with what some see as the too rapid relaxation of social controls. "In four years, Khatami did nothing for the economy. There's too much freedom now, especially the way young people behave in the parks," said Mehdi, an antique dealer, who said he would vote for conservative former labour minister Ahmad Tavakoli.
But he praised the president's foreign policy, saying Iran's image in the world had improved greatly. Even among bazaar traders renowned for their religious conservatism, most said they would vote for Khatami.
Among young Isfahanis, impatience at Khatami's caution is tempered by a desire to avoid violence and a widespread belief that reform and modernization are inevitable over time.
"The reformers haven't taken advantage of their position to force the conservatives to make concessions," Saberi complained. "One of the main problems is that Khatami is badly advised. His personality is risk-averse. He should appoint true reformers to his cabinet instead of power-seekers."
But Nasreen, another physics student, said young people were prepared to be patient to avoid a possible explosion.
"When two stones collide, they smash. Khatami's approach is like water, gradually wearing down and flowing around the stone," she said.