Presidential Vote in Iran Draws Massive Turnout

TEHRAN —  Iranians turned out in massive numbers Friday to vote in the first closely contested presidential race since the 1979 revolution, a choice that pitted a symbol of religious conservatism against an intellectual cleric who calls for greater openness.

In what could amount to a major upset for Iran’s conservative establishment, former Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Khatami, a moderate theologian, threatened to defeat Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, the anti-Western speaker of Iran’s Parliament for the past eight years.

Based on journalists’ conversations with voters emerging from polls, Khatami appeared to be the overwhelming favorite in greater Tehran, home to one-fifth of the country’s 60 million people. But it was unknown how well he would do in the more conservative rural areas of the country, where illiterate voters often rely on clerics to fill in their ballot.

In addition, there were no independent observers or monitors at the vote counting, which began Friday night. The two governmental organs in charge--the Interior Ministry and the Council of Guardians--are considered conservative bastions, and some Khatami backers feared vote-rigging.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, dismissed the possibility of vote manipulation and pledged to work closely with whomever the voters choose.

“Whoever gets voted in today, God willing . . . I will act toward him the same way I have done in the past years toward the president,” Khamenei told Tehran radio.

There was almost a palpable sense of anticipation as voters queued in mosques and schools along buildings plastered with the posters of the candidates.

Khatami’s posters promised a “better tomorrow,” while many of Nateq-Nuri’s had been defaced, his eyes gouged out or painted over.

“The reason people are excited by Khatami is that he is both religious and intellectual,” said Mehdi Musavi, director of a trading company, before going in to cast his ballot in an affluent northern Tehran neighborhood where the grip of clerical rule has always been uneasy. “He is open-minded in politics, social life and the economy too.”

Even in the gritty industrial suburbs south of Tehran, once believed to be the heartland of the rightists who support Nateq-Nuri, a pro-Khatami mood was blooming.

“I am very happy, especially because I am sure that the person I voted for is going to win,” said Behan Rafie, an industrial engineer who joined the army because he could not find work.

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Polling hours were extended from 6 until 10 p.m. in most places to accommodate the heavy turnout, but even so some people were still lining up to the last minute.

Interior Ministry officials said they hoped to have results by late today.

The differing moods of the two main camps were obvious when their candidates voted in Tehran.

Khatami’s supporters mobbed him, cheering loudly, according to journalists present.

When Nateq-Nuri voted at another station, there were few supporters, and they were subdued.

“If Nateq-Nuri wins, then essentially the system’s candidate wins. Therefore you wouldn’t expect a lot to change,” one diplomat in Tehran said before the vote. “If Khatami wins, then things become more interesting, partly because he is known to be more open-minded and partly because it will be seen as a defeat” for Iran’s current leadership.

The electorate appeared seized by a desire for change, both economically and in the freedom to speak openly, several analysts said.

“Per capita income in real terms is one-fourth what it was in the shah’s time, and people are really feeling the pinch,” an Asian diplomat said. “The level of dissidence is rising. People are speaking out.”

Nateq-Nuri is known as an ideologue, a fierce critic of the West and a strict enforcer of the Shiite Muslim clergy’s preeminent role in ruling.

Khatami, on the other hand, was removed after 10 years as culture minister in 1992 in response to complaints from conservatives that he was too liberal. In campaign speeches, he said he would allow “different views” if elected.

“Our people do not deserve to be poor and ignorant, not having the facilities of a developed country. Our backwardness is not due to natural resources or culture--we have both,” Khatami told supporters at his final rally Wednesday. “The problem is due to the lack of a correct, independent government.”

Besides Nateq-Nuri and Khatami, two others were on the ballot--Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri, a former interior minister, and Reza Zaverei, a judicial official. If no one wins a majority, a runoff will be held.

Originally, 238 people applied to run. But the religious watchdog Council of Guardians eliminated all those who it believed were not sufficiently Islamic or failed to qualify as a rejal, or statesman.

All nine female applicants were thus rejected by the council.

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The incumbent, Hashemi Rafsanjani, is required to step down in August at the end of his second four-year term. He is to be chairman of a newly strengthened and expanded Expediency Council, the body that assists the supreme leader, and some believe that he will remain more powerful than whoever succeeds him as president.

In the past, Nateq-Nuri and the conservative parliament often blocked the pragmatic Rafsanjani when he attempted reforms.

If Khatami wins, a Rafsanjani-Khatami alliance could mean “real change,” said Dariush Mehrjouie, a prominent Iranian filmmaker.

Khamenei, however, has been stressing that no new president will be permitted to change Iran’s hostile stance toward the United States.