Iran; The Reformists have become 'Irrelevant'

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48789-2003Jul12.html

TEHRAN -- A faded, nearly shredded picture of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami peers at customers from the back of Mitra Azad's computer in a travel agency in central Tehran. Pen marks on the smiling president's salt-and-pepper beard and the curled-up edges of the sticker offer evidence of a hasty attempt to remove it.

"In the eyes of many people, the reformists have become irrelevant," said Shirzad Bozorgmehr, editor of the independent Iran News, an English-language daily. "While they battle among themselves and take every defeat with ease, the movement is dying before our eyes."

Some government officials, journalists and other influential Iranians say conservatives will contest parliamentary elections in February 2004 and presidential elections in May 2005 on a platform of economic security, banking on disillusionment with reformists to keep voter turnout low.

When conservatives run for office, they generally receive no more than 20 percent of the vote. In April, however, that was enough for the conservatives to win Tehran's municipal council elections against reformists, whose supporters stayed away from the polls en masse.


(referring to Reformists): "They are useless," said Mehrnaz, 33, a homemaker who attended the rally and who, like many of the people interviewed, gave only one name. "They just speak nice words but do little."

A leading pro-democracy student group, the Daftar-e-Tahkim-e-Vahdat (Office to Foster Unity), broke with the reformists last week, declaring in an open letter to U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan that their former allies were incapable of achieving democracy, human rights and freedom.

Leila, 24, an architecture student, disagreed: "The reformists are finished. Let's move on."

Irrelevant, useless, unable to achieve anything.