Class Is Pivotal In Iran Runoff

Unemployment in Iran is officially at 10 percent but is widely thought to be twice as high. Inflation is at 16 percent. Per-capita income is $2,000.

"He's not one of the mullahs, so maybe he would work for people," Atieh Faramurzi, 48, a housewife in Tehran, said of Ahmadinejad.

Rafsanjani supporters said they found painful irony in the fact that their rival appealed to some voters bent on opposing the establishment. They say Ahmadinejad is a front for the conservative appointees at the top of Iran's byzantine constitutional structure who have thwarted the reformist agenda of Mohammad Khatami, the outgoing president. Khatami was twice swept into the presidency with more than 70 percent of the vote.

Critics say the mayor is a vehicle for others' goals. "He is like one of these disposable cups you use once and throw away," said Mohammad Atrianfar, a senior official in Rafsanjani's campaign.

"Of course," Atrianfar added, "the blame is not to be put on Ahmadinejad. The blame has to be put on the Iranian political structure and the Guardian Council."

The council is the most activist of three panels of self-appointed, mostly hard-line clerics whose authority outstrips that of any elected Iranian official. Last year, the Guardian Council used its power to bar all reformers from running for parliament. Critics say the clerics and their allies see in Ahmadinejad the opportunity to finally gain control of the executive branch and its ministries.

"Twenty-six years have passed since the revolution," Atrianfar said, "and they still haven't gotten their hands on the administration."

Ahmadinejad has denied being a front, but his career has deep roots in the murky power center that is Iran's military.

The son of a blacksmith, he was raised in the east Tehran neighborhood of Marmak, where from elementary school on he stood out as "the smartest student in east Tehran," said Hadian-Jazy, a former classmate. After the revolution, Ahmadinejad joined the Revolutionary Guard, serving in the eight-year war with Iraq as an engineer. He was also active in the basij , the state-sponsored militia that enforces rules against drinking and other behavior deemed un-Islamic.

In Tehran, Ahmadinejad's campaign headquarters brims with young men wearing long-sleeved black shirts, the uniform of the basij. Like officers in the Revolutionary Guard, those in charge chat with reporters but refuse to give their full names. Both groups are said to have turned out heavily for the mayor.

"We don't want extensions of freedom on a Western model. We want something of our own, something local," said Mohammad Shakiba, 19, a basij member, dressed in a business suit, who spoke in the courtyard of a mosque.

Ahmadinejad won the job of mayor two years ago after his conservative party prevailed in a local election with only a 12 percent turnout. Since then, his tenure has been distinguished by largess, as his office handed out money to community groups for religious observances and sharply increased the size of loans to newly married couples.