Iran wraps up election campaign

TEHRAN (AFP) - Campaigning for Iran’s presidential election wrapped up on Thursday after three weeks of
mass rallies, a series of fiery television debates and vitriolic mudslinging among the four candidates.
Friday’s poll has emerged as a hotly-contested race between incumbent hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and
his main rival, moderate Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is seeking a comeback after two decades in the political
wilderness.
The campaign has highlighted deep differences in the Islamic republic after four years under Ahmadinejad,
whose hardline rhetoric on the nuclear standoff and against Israel has increasingly isolated Iran from the West,
while his expansionist economic policies have also come under fire at home.
Analysts are still hesitant to pick a winner, suggesting the vote may be a repeat of 2005 when a relatively
unknown Ahmadinejad scored a stunning upset in a second-round runoff against heavyweight cleric Akbar
Hashemi Rafsanjani. Passions have been running high during the campaign, with candidates hurling insults and
allegations of lying and corruption at each other with unprecedented rancour on prime time television.
At a final campaign rally on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad, who has frequently described the Holocaust as a myth,
accused his rivals of using “tactics like Hitler” to whip up public opinion against him, the Fars news agency said.
On the streets, supporters of the top candidates turned out en masse for carnival-like rallies in a country that has
little to offer in terms of nightlife during three decades of conservative clerical rule.
At nightfall, young people and families with children in tow would cruise around in cars festooned with pictures
and campaign stickers, many wearing green for Mousavi and others waving the Iranian flag for Ahmadinejad.
The two other candidates in the running are reformist former parliament speaker Mehdi Karroubi and ex-head of
the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, Mohsen Rezai.
The mass rallies have reflected the glaring divide in Iran with towns and villages passionately backing
Ahmadinejad, while young men and women in big cities throwing their weight behind Mousavi, the former
premier.
Mousavi, 67, has pledged to work to improve relations with the outside world, although there is doubt he will alter