Iran: Election night

Iason Athanasiadis, for the Pulitzer Center

Despite being in his late thirties, Shahram Khanalizadeh had never voted in an election until last Friday. But when he entered a humble polling station in a South Tehran mosque, he dabbed his finger in ink and voted for reformist candidate Mir Mohammad Mousavi.

"Those who want to achieve power will ascend the ladder of power, stepping on stone and humans alike to get there," said Khanalizadeh as he walked out of the center's yard. "If there's strife over this election, then brother will kill brother, the struggle will enter right into our houses."

Khanalizadeh may be speaking from personal experience. His brother belongs to the Bassij, a nationwide morality militia who have been Ahmadinejad's most fervent supporters. He voted for the Iranian president because he believes that, of all the candidates, he is the one who can best defend his country's interests. Khanalizadeh, who claims he prays every day, said that his brother only entered the Bassij ago out of convenience. His entry preceded his drafting into the army by a few months and, according to Khanalizadeh, he did it so he could belong to a network that looks after its own.

Iran's presidential election has seen the culture wars that have beset this country ever since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 enter the living room and set family members against each other. While Iran tended to be heavily socially stratified in the era of the Shah and the first two decades of the Iranian Revolution, one of the highest demographic growth rates in the world has led to larger and more differentiated families.

Meanwhile, an ever more sophisticated society has promoted growing fragmentation in recent years. "Inflation has been terrifying over the past few years to the point where people can't make do with their salaries," said Abbazar Khanalizadeh, a 62-year-old father, as he sat on the floor of his sparsely appointed living room under portraits of Shiite imams. "Thankfully we own our own home, don't smoke, drink or do opium so we have few expenses."

Khanalizadeh was one of the millions of poverty-stricken Iranians who wrote page-long letters to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asking for work or a loan. A former drug addict who has been clean for three years, he was forced to ask for a new job after his father trasnferred the car that Khanalizadeh drove as a taxi to his brother. But his disappointment mounted as his personal request was referred from the municipality to provincial authorities and then onto the Labour Ministry before, finally, ending at the Committee of Support, a government body that offers charity and financial aid to the poorest strata of Iranian society. "I wrote a letter to the President saying I was a former addict and now I'm unemployed," he said. "What do I need that for? I need work, not charity!"

Millions of Iranians were transfixed by the stream of election results being broadcast throughout the night as they tuned into state television and the Persian language services of the BBC and Voice of America that ran round-the-clock coverage. Rumours whipped through Tehran that the storm that struck Tehran late in the voting and kept several thousands of the well-heeled pro-reformist residents of the capital's posh northern suburbs at home and away from the polling stations was 'holy rain'. Before midnight, blackouts sunk parts of Tehran into darkness, prompting rumours that the regime feared trouble. The SMS message function was apparently disabled on all mobile phone networks. The Islamic Republic, meanwhile, had courted its citizens' affections through a number of social projects, an enormous civil servant class and subtle allegiance-claiming economic measures.

Passing by a mosque, Khanalizadeh described how the shops set into its ground floor are some of the perks that the Bassij offers its members as a reward for their loyalty. "The owner of that shop," Khanalizadeh tells me pointing to one of the businesses, "was given it for free for being a janbaz (wounded in the Iran-Iraq War). He also picks up a salary from the Bonyad-e Janbazan (an institution that financially helps crippled soldiers) and his army pension."

Just outside the polling station sat a group of friends playing cards in the shade of a tree. "We voted against Ahmadinejad because that way we'll have more freedom," said Hamed, a 19-year-old unemployed man, as he flipped a jack of spades with the Statue of Liberty printed on its underside. "We wouldn't have more money under Mousavi but we'd have more freedom." "America wants peace, it wants to come into our house, but they (the current government) are keeping the door closed," said the elder Khanalizadeh.

As the results pointing towards an Ahmadinejad victory with over 60 percent of the vote piled in, Khanalizadeh became ever more dejected. "This is not a Jumhuri (Republic), it's a Jumpuly (cashpublic)," he concluded.