Campaign blues

Iran's President Khatami's first major rally strikes hardly any note at all. Azadeh Moaveni follows the Tehran's lacklustre presidential campaign
Knowing the outcome of an election in advance tends to make for dull campaigns. The driving logic of President Mohammed Khatami's campaign is that since the issues matter, and there is no serious rival to beat, people should vote en masse as a giant approval stamp on the reform movement.
Khatami already has the masses on his side, so the fight is to woo the slice of Iran's 40 million electorate who are disenchanted enough to stay home on election day. This means grabbing people's attention, and when the Khatami camp announced the first, and perhaps only, huge rally of his campaign, it seemed his people had read the polls and realised the onus was theirs.
So for two weeks reformists trumpeted the speech: Khatami would "tell all," a sports stadium was rented, and the judiciary inadvertently created some last-minute excitement by threatening to cancel the event. But inexplicably, instead of boosting his crowd appeal, Khatami picked the bland route.
"Don't vote for sentimental reasons," he urged the 40,000 gathered for his speech. "Vote out of vigilance for democracy." Khatami singled out the voters he wanted: women, students and young workers. But his talk of accountability and democracy was threaded through so many clichés and boring historical references that the young crowd who had turned out in the blazing sun only heard stale messages in an old wrapping. Nearly everything about Khatami's speech left supporters perplexed, yearning for that old Khatami charm. "He's lost that love and feeling," said Siamak Namazi, a Tehran consultant, as he walked out after 10 minutes.
An anticipating crowd and a lively mood only underscored Khatami's fatigued approach. Loudspeakers blared rousing revolutionary anthems onto the streets, supporters sported psychedelic sun visors adorned with Khatami's face and a Technicolor daffodil, and the crowd chanted "political prisoners must be freed." The stadium fell to a hush when presidential adviser Saeed Hajjarian, still limping from a would-be assassin's bullet wound, made a surprise appearance, his voice wobbling as he recited lines of poetry.
"Reform has a price," he cautioned. "And even I am still prepared to pay an ever higher one." Massoud, 27, an engineer, was unmoved: "What? A higher price? It's already too much to bear," he retorted. The crowd cheered wildly and began chanting "death to terrorists!"
From the bleachers, prominent reformists surveyed the crowd. Renowned satirist Ebrahim Nabavi, recently freed from prison, interrupted a discussion of a memorable prison football match to traipse off into the throng: "I'm off to get some energy," he said, disappearing. But in the end, there was no energy to be had, and great expectations collided with a lacklustre performance. "I expected a confession, where he would tell us about the obstacles he faced," said Maryam, 34, a teacher. By the middle of Khatami's speech, the bleachers were pocked by empty rows.
Being vague is Khatami's strong suit, a tactic he uses to avoid giving his conservative opponents a target for attack. But with his senior aides lobbying 25-26 million votes, no one is explaining how the president can aggressively court voters while being his usual cautious self. "We know realistically he won't get more than 16-17 million votes, but we don't want this to be used against him later," said MP Ahmed Bourghani. "For years whoever proclaimed these slogans was condemned as a destroyer of Islam," said Khatami. So Khatami has won the spin battle, but his spin, which once drove crowds ecstatic, is four years-old and can't hold a crowd in its seats now.
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