For Iranian Voters, It's the Economy

Choices for Parliament Are Limited, but President Is Not Immune From Critics

TEHRAN, March 12 -- As Iran prepares for parliamentary elections on Friday, voters find their choices largely limited to candidates who belong to the faction that brought the outspoken Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency.

But that doesn't mean the president has a smooth course ahead. Many of these candidates, though praising much of his confrontational foreign policy, roundly condemn his management of an economy that is stagnating at a time of unprecedented oil wealth.

Election vetting councils, meanwhile, have disqualified most dissident politicians who sought a place on the ballot. This camp, led by former president Mohammad Khatami, who advocates political loosening and better relations with the West but is not running himself, has no chance of winning a majority in the 290-seat assembly.

As the campaign wraps up -- last-minute fliers are being handed out in the streets and state television is urging people to vote -- victory seems certain for politicians who call themselves "principalists." Like Ahmadinejad, they say they want to fulfill the goals of the 1979 revolution: help the poor and enhance the role of Islam in society. They strive to place Iran among the world's leading nations. All closely follow Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who on several occasions has publicly supported them.

But reflecting widespread public disillusionment with rising inflation and unemployment, their criticism of the president's management of the economy is often strong. Some of these people -- former Revolutionary Guards, civil servants and idealistic young politicians among them -- openly accuse the government of being power-hungry, though it is headed by a fellow principalist.

Ahmadinejad, in turn, has accused the current parliament of sabotaging his plans to get the economy going. Last month he tried to increase executive power at the cost of the parliament's, but the supreme leader disagreed and intervened. Ahmadinejad's supporters say he needs more time to achieve his goals.

Whatever the specific results of Friday's vote, the Iranian president is likely to face stronger challenges from the incoming parliament than he did from the current one.

"Four years ago these politicians ran on the same list for parliament, but the high inflation, drastic unemployment and style of governance by Ahmadinejad have caused a division between them," said candidate Nader Talebzadeh, an Ahmadinejad supporter.

Even though Iran's electoral system is based on individuals and not on political parties, two opposing camps -- both part of what analysts here call the "inner circle" -- will dominate Iran's next parliament.

Political analysts here predict that critics of the current government are likely to be the bigger group. They are led by politicians such as Ali Larijani, Iran's former top nuclear negotiator, and Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guards commander and current mayor of Tehran. They tend to be less isolationist and more pragmatic than the president.

The other group is made up of Ahmadinejad loyalists, determined to win the confrontation with the West at all political costs and defensive of the president's economic policies.

"The new parliament will agree on Iran's nuclear policy, discuss the tone of the country's foreign policy, but will challenge the president over the economy," Talebzadeh said.