Rasha Saad sums up the mood: Ahmadinejad's victory bodes ill for the future of Iran and elsewhere "Ahmadinejad surprises the world and becomes Iran's president", "Ahmadinejad snatches Iran's presidency", were the banner headlines of the UAE newspapers Al-Khaleej and Al-Ittihad summing up the reaction of Arab commentators following the upset and in some quarters shocking victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. For a good two weeks leading up to the vote, the press had all but announced Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani the winner, and had been running stories analysing the implications of his victory. They dedicated daily pages on the former president, describing him as the next Iranian Gorbachev. Thus, when Ahmadinejad turned the tables, commentators were surprised not least because the new man came virtually out of nowhere, but because he is an ultra-conservative and swept the elections, garnering 61.8 per cent of the vote compared to 35.7 per cent for Rafsanjani. Abdullah Iskandar in the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper wrote that electing the ultra-conservative Ahmadinejad put an end to the eight-year struggle between the reformists and conservatives and put once and for all decision-making in the hands of the conservatives. "The Islamic Republic of Iran has closed the chapters of former President Mohamed Khatami. The Iranian regime has now returned to reconcile its slogans with its constitution, thus putting an end to a struggle between the reformists and the conservatives." Iskandar predicted the revival of the Iranian-Syrian political axis "given their long history of coordination and cooperation. "As long as the US insists on intervening to impose changes in Iran and Syria by exercising pressure and supporting the opposition, then both countries will create a unified front especially in hot spots like Iraq and Lebanon where they have more than one card at their disposal," Iskandar wrote. Also in Al-Hayat, Abdul-Wahab Badrakhan wrote that the Iranians' choice of Ahmadinejad in which they celebrated the occasion as if it were a national victory, would have been justified if their goal was to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. Badrakhan said though that Iranians cannot afford to do so because they are forced to deal with many crucial regional and international issues -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Gulf and nuclear energy -- "all which keeps Iran in constant contact with the Americans". Attempting to explain the reason behind Ahmadinejad's victory, Badrakhan said the Iranians were motivated by US and Israeli threats to launch a war on their country. Iranians seek to reform their system and introduce more freedoms and sovereignty "however like any other nation, it rejects reform and democracy from outside. Coupling calls by the US for reforms with military threats [in the hopes of encouraging Iranians to elect a reformist] was just the wrong recipe." Badrakhan added that the Americans were unable to present any model of reform that would encourage other countries and people to follow. "The Afghan system gives the impression that it is still temporary and an experiment. The Iraqi model is still in the making... Direct and indirect US intervention helped in complicating things more than solve them." The London-based Asharq Al-Awsat ran the banner "Iran goes back to the arms of the Islamic Revolution". A front page story said the victory of an ultra- conservative over a pragmatist was "Tehran's spring". Ahmed Al-Rubei in Asharq Al-Awsat wrote that conservatives in both Tehran and Washington will celebrate the victory of Ahmadinejad along with all other Iranians who dream of the collapse of the Islamic regime. Al-Rubei believes that had Rafsanjani won he would have sidestepped many landmines in Iran's international relations. "The victory of Ahmadinejad means that topping the Iranian presidency is someone who speaks with ideology rather than pragmatism, i.e., he deals with slogans more than reality, and will eventually embarrass Iran regionally and internationally, strengthening opposition forces inside and outside Iran." Al-Rubei said matters in Iran will run into more complications because the results of the elections disappointed many powers inside and outside Iran. Al-Rubei claimed the election result was a disappointment to the majority of Iran's youth who were hopeful of more freedom and the loosening of the grip of religious authority on public life and personal freedoms. So, too, regional and international powers were hopeful Rafsanjani, with his political pragmatism, would win to resolve many of Iran's problems. The Saudi Al-Riyadh newspaper wrote in its editorial that the new president will not necessarily act according to the way the media have portrayed him because his past responsibility of running the capital's municipality was totally different than leading a heavyweight 70 million population in which conflicting powers are at odds and the country's compass is left not just to the president. In "The chador wins" Nora Fakhori described Ahmadinejad as a man with sharp looks who will throw Iran back into the hardline prison which it was freed from when Khatami took office. In Al-Ittihad Fakhori warned of Ahmadinejad's hardline background, saying that since he took charge of Tehran as its mayor "he changed the life of its inhabitants into a bunch of 'no's' and placed many restrictions on the reforms which the reformists established." Fakhori said Ahmadinejad had closed many fast-food restaurants and ordered men to wear long sleeves and wear a beard and women to wear the chador. Fakhori wondered how he would deal with the many regional and international issues and "how internally he will handle a majority of youths who are divided between jeans and the chador, between Hollywood cinema and speeches of the mosque." Hossam Kanafani from Al-Khaleej described Ahmadinejad's victory as "Taliban Iran tops presidency." The victory is a setback to the eight-year reform efforts of Khatami in his struggle with the conservatives, Kanafani said. "With Iran's Taliban on top of the presidency we can say that the reformists are totally out of the Iranian political equation especially after losing their majority in parliament and now their presidential seat." In the Lebanese As-Safir newspaper, Satei Noureddin wrote that matters in Iran are not running contrary to history because Iranians have always been out of history. "Iran in the 1970s was a real popular uprising against poverty and injustice. But the Islamic state was not a model that belonged to the 1970s despite the fact that it was the best political experience that a closed religious system could create. Thus the victory of Ahmadinejad was not a setback for the path of democracy and freedom as the Americans claim but rather a return to the roots of the unique Iranian experience which some Iranians have tried, in vain, to modernise the past eight years." According to Noureddin, the Iranian democracy is unique in that it stands in the middle, offering constitutional rights and absolute dictatorships. He explains that such a system opens the way for a real election between candidates. At the same time the candidates are carefully selected by the regime so as not to pose any threat. They do not affect any real change in the system and its religious setup while providing the Iranians "exceptional political entertainment". Despite accusations that the government rigged the elections and US claims that Iran is not a democratic regime, a poll by the London-based Al-Quds Al-Arabi shows that many Arabs believe Iran is more democratic than their own governments. In a vote on its online site from 19-26 June, the newspaper's question was: do you think the Islamic regime in Iran is more democratic than in Arab countries? Out of 7,880 votes, 77.4 voted yes and 33 per cent voted no.
