Iranian Clerics Urge Big Turnout in Leadership Vote

"We need a referendum on the system," said Mohsen Sazegara, a reformist serving as a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "All our efforts must be toward a new constitution."

But talk of boycott concerns others besides Iran's hard-line conservatives, who plainly crave a turnout high enough to be framed as endorsement of their continued rule.

Since polls show a solid majority of Iranians favoring change, low turnout also stands to hamper the prospects of the reformist ticket on the ballot -- a ticket that also supports a referendum to make over Iran's constitution.

"The conditions for such a referendum should be prepared," said Javad Emam, a senior official in the campaign of Mustafa Moin, a former minister for higher education who has emerged as the most prominent reformist candidate. "We need to be inside the system and push the present progress forward, to the point where people can decide whatever they want."

What the people want, in terms of government, is not yet known. But Ganji's demand for election of the supreme leader strikes at the heart of the Iranian system, established in the constitution that was approved in a 1981 referendum.

That document enshrined the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as supreme leader, ruling as the agent of the messianic Imam Mehdi, who disappeared in the 9th century and whose return many Shiite Muslims believe will signal the day of judgment.

But enthusiasm for a system that puts total trust in the rule of clerics declined steadily after Khomeini, whose 1989 death Iranians will observe in a public holiday on Saturday. Young Iranians, who now account for two-thirds of the electorate, swept Khatami into office in 1997 in part because of his promise to reduce rigid religious oversight of personal lives. But the mild-mannered former librarian's efforts to expand executive powers were thwarted by the appointed mullahs.

The clerics also used their authority to shutter more than 100 newspapers and last year disqualified most reformists from running in parliamentary elections. This year, appointed clerics disqualified Moin from running for president, only to be overruled by Khamenei.

The decision to allow Moin to run may enliven a moribund race. Polls show the field of seven candidates is led by Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a wealthy businessman invariably described as "pragmatic." Rafsanjani's long, checkered history includes two terms as president.

Moin, who enjoys a squeaky-clean reputation and good relations with student activists, is being marketed "as a symbol of progressive reform," Emam said. Moin's running mate is President Khatami's younger, bolder brother, Mohammad Reza Khatami, who this week was quoted as saying, "In our country we have two power structures, and preserving the democratic one is a major step toward establishing democracy."

Four of the five remaining candidates are conservatives, including Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hard-line mayor of Tehran elected two years ago when barely 10 percent of voters turned out and the conservatives' small base carried the day.

On Friday, Ahmadinejad left weekly prayers at the leafy University of Tehran campus in a small scrum of supporters chanting, "Greetings to the Prophet! Here comes the real follower of the Leader!" The group pushed through the crowd of mostly middle-age worshipers -- few young people attend Friday prayers in the capital -- and a vendor peddling CDs promising to unveil the corruption of the reformists.

"We want to make a good impression so that other nations know what path to take," Ahmadinejad told the throng. "This is the Prophet's promise. This is what will happen. There will be a global state of Islam."

As the scrum moved off, an old man shouted, "Pray for him! This is the most effective weapon we have. Just pray, and he will become our president."