Ahmadinejad’s Popularity Fading Fast

Meir Javedanfar reports on the recent SMS poll that registered a resounding rejection of the Ahmadinejad administration by the Iranian people. But the West, he says, must be careful not to push them back into the arms of the extremist politicians that are losing their loyalty.

July 14, 2007 - by Meir Javedanfar

While Ahmadinejad owes his initial success to polls, his presidency has since to come to rightly fear them. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nearly did not make it onto the list of candidates for the 2005 presidential elections. Other candidates, such as Ali Larijani (current head of Iran’s nuclear negotiation team), Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (Tehran’s current mayor), and Mohsen Rezai (Deputy Head of the Expediency Council), who belonged to the same faction as Ahmadinejad, were trying to push him out of the race at the time because he was crowding the field. Having four people from the same faction meant that they would have been stealing votes from each other, enabling outside competitors such as Rafsanjani to gain an advantage. Ahmadinejad was singled out because he was the least-known candidate among the public. They assumed no one would notice if he dropped out.

Ahmadinejad’s saving grace was a poll taken by Mehr News three days prior to the election. It showed that Ahmadinejad was the third most popular candidate of the seven running for president. This legitimized his position as a candidate, and he stayed on to win the election.

While Ahmadinejad owes his initial success to polls, his presidency has since to come to rightly fear them. Although many have ruled out polls in Iran as an objective yardstick, the very fact that politicians are nevertheless scared of them shows that they do present some valid information.

This was demonstrated recently when Radio Javan, an Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) owned radio station, asked its listeners, on the second anniversary of Ahamadinejad’s victory, to SMS the candidate they would vote for if the election were held again. The listeners had the same seven candidates to choose from as they did in 2005. The results of this poll were never publicized. According to reports from Iran, this was due to pressure from Ahmadinejad, who had been informed of his performance.

Ahmadinejad is a well-connected man in the IRIB. Ezzatollah Zarghami, the current head of IRIB, is a Revolutionary Guard comrade of Ahmadinejad’s. However, being a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Gaurds Corp (IRGC) does not mean that Ahmadinejad can always get what he wants.

62.5% of voters who said that they voted for [Ahmadinejad] in 2005 would not do so again.Baztab.com, which is one of the best sources of news from Iran, is owned by Mohsen Rezai, another IRGC veteran. Rezai does not allow Ahmadinejad to abuse his position. As one of the best connected politicians in Iran, Mohsen Rezai has the freedom to scrutinize and criticize Ahmadinejad’s plans and policies like no other. Although he does praise Ahmadinejad where he sees fit; his fearlessness has won him respect in and outside of Iran. This is one man that Ahmadinejad cannot push around, a fact that Rezai does not hesitate to remind him of.

Baztab recently ran a poll asking users if they would vote for Ahmadinejad or not. Each computer was only allowed one vote, and 20,177 voters took part. Unlike Radio Javan, Baztab did publish its results.

There were four questions and each voter could choose only one. The votes were broken down into two categories — those who for Ahmadinejad in 2005 in Category One, and those who did not in Category Two:

Category One

  1. I voted for Ahmadinejad in 2005, and would vote for him again: 37.5%

  2. I voted for Ahmadinejad in 2005, but would not vote for him again: 62.5%

Category Two

  1. I did not vote for Ahmadinejad in 2005, but would vote for him next time: 5.3%

  2. I did not vote for Ahmadinejad in 2005, and would not vote for him again: 94.7%

Although Ahmadinejad is unpopular, the West must not think that it has a blank to check to do what it wants in Iran.The results are an astounding setback for Ahmadinejad. 62.5% of voters who said that they voted for him in 2005 would not do so again. This is first and foremost due to the combination of the abysmal performance of his economic policies and his inability to cut corruption, as he promised to do in 2005.

The rationing of petrol has only made things worse. Far worse. On the day the rationing plan was started, a popular SMS was doing the rounds of millions of mobile phones in Iran. The message read, “No petrol to drive your car to work? Don’t worry. Use one of the 17 million donkeys who voted for Ahmadinejad to ride to work.” This message worried the administration so much that the entire SMS system was shut down for a day in order to enable the Ministry of Communication to delete the insulting messages from the network.

Although Ahmadinejad is unpopular, the West must not think that it has a blank to check to do what it wants in Iran. Every time the words “regime change” are uttered by neocons in Washington the extremists score political loyalty points. Something they desperately need. The UN may seem toothless from the perspective of Washington. But it is one of the most useful and powerful organizations for tackling extremists in Iran due to its international composition, and the very fact that Iran itself is a member. Such legitimacy strikes fear in the heart of Ahmadinejad’s government like no other foreign organization can.

Meir Javedanfar is the co-author of the upcoming book %%AMAZON=0786718870 “The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran.%%” He runs Middle East Economic and Political Analysis (Meepas)

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12 Comments

1. Full Metal Cynic:

Since Iranian women have taken the brunt of this radical government I wonder what the ratio of women to men in this poll was? And another thing. If the rationing of gas–and not personal liberty– is mostly responsible for the government’s unpopularity what does that tell us about the nature of the opposition?

Jul 14, 2007 - 6:38 am 2. Linda Frank:

I wold like to believe this columnist, but I suspect open polls, such as SMS, as unreliable in Iran as they are elsewhere. For example, on this very site, Ron Paul is leading the open presidential straw poll. On more scientifically conducted samples, he is at one percent. The country people who support the insane Ahmadinejad are probably not even using SMS.

Jul 14, 2007 - 7:29 am 3. Banafsheh:

When was Ahmadinejad ever popular? Ahmadinejad’s popularity was a myth that was created by his campaign manager, the Texas A&M-educated Mahdi Chamran (whose brother Mostafa was one of the early generals and founders if you will, of Hezbollah); Ahmadinejad and Chamran are both devotees of the evil Ayatollah Messbah-Yazdi. Ahamdinejad was only claimed to have been popular as a man of the people type image (the same way in Russia, Putin is being claimed as popular). Ahmadinejad was never popular inside Iran; the most anyone in Iran was willing to give him was a tiny benefit of doubt and nothing more and that was because he wasn’t wearing a turban and promised to clean up the mess the Mullah politicians had made. If you ever listened to the Iranian TV or radio call-in programs or talked to anyone inside Iran, read the blogs, etc. you’d know that inside Iran it was a TOTALLY different story.

Jul 14, 2007 - 8:53 am 4. Fari:

Isn’t this exactly what an Iranian disinformation blogger would write? Look, he says, Ahmadinejad is unpopular. Just wait and leave him to the Iranian voters. Meanwhile, the two different nuke programs (uranium and plutonium) are speeding ahead. That’s exactly what all the “Iran experts” have been writing in the Washington Post, the NY Times, etc. The mullahs aren’t fools. If Saddam could buy opinion leaders in the West with oil money, what do you think Ahmadinejad is doing right now?

Jul 14, 2007 - 10:19 am 5. huxley:

Something to remember is that the real power in Iran is not the President, but the Supreme Leader (currently Ayatollah Khamenei, successor of Ayatollah Khomeini). Iranian candidates must first be chosen by the Guardian Council before they can run for election.

Iran is not really a democracy and Ahmadinejad’s popularity, or lack of it, is not really the issue compared to Iran’s drive to acquire nuclear weapons, which started before him and will continue after him.

No one sensible in the West imagines we have a “blank check to do what we want in Iran.” Even the Iranian people have little say in that.

Jul 14, 2007 - 3:28 pm 6. Banafsheh:

Fari, this is not disinformation. Clearly you’re entirely unfamiliar with how the so-called “voting” in Iran works. AND how this (s)election process of Ahmadinejad was specifically orchestrated by Khamenei’s son who is in league with Messbah-Yazdi against Rafsanjani. Ahmadinejad was “created” by the supreme leader’s people and the Hojjatiyeh group in order to teach Rafsanjani and HIS creation of the reformists/Khatami was pulled off. Please read up on the information rather than react to shallow news that is “official line” sound bytes created by the Mullahs, promoted by agenda-mongering international journalists.

Jul 14, 2007 - 4:31 pm 7. Winston:

Too sad to see PJM trying to become a part of MSM with respect to Iran…

Jul 14, 2007 - 10:45 pm 8. DaMav:

If you wanted to write an article trying to protect Ahmadinejad from US pressure, you couldn’t do much better than this one. This is the classic ‘don’t attack the terrorists because it only makes things worse’ meme the left has been pushing for years. I only wonder what it is doing at Pajamas Media which purports to be somewhat more enlightened than this piece of apologist crap.

You have one online poll and you are telling us we better back off or it will make him more popular again? Iran better toss him out of office or it will get squashed like a bug. We’re not going to do Mr Nice Guy again like we did in Iraq.

Jul 15, 2007 - 12:56 am 9. Kian Kiani:

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Iran & Voice of America

Category: Blogging

Iran & Voice of America I would like to bring your attention to matters most important at the Persian Service of Voice of America; especially during this juncture when confrontation between the U.S. and the government of Iran is on a collision course. The people at VOA are in charge of conveying the true message of the government of the United States (freedom) by presenting it through clear and comprehensible programs which are broadcast to the Iranian people.

The end results of programming from Voice of America, however, are nothing but ludicrous and disgraceful. I declare this since I worked in the department and I know from first hand experience the complete lack of competence.

The cockamamie management team consists of a woman (Sheila Gandji) with no formal education, no journalism background and no experience in anything but ass licking; and a geriatric man (Kambiz Mahmoudi) who has never been in charge of any job, but perhaps as a barber, skilled in altering his hair color by dying it from white to blonde, then to black, then to brown…

Worse, everybody in Iran knows that the Chief of Persian Service in Voice of America had received $850,000 from the Shah’s regime to spend for publicity but when the revolution in Iran brought another regime, and then this man kept the money for himself and did not return it to the people of Iran.

In addition, everybody in Iran knows that he was at the payroll of CIA in mid-80’s working in “Radio Nejat” in Cairo Egypt but was fired because of unknown involvements.

Then you may ask why so many million dollars of the tax money are spent at the Persian Service with such characters who are known as a thief and informant for CIA? Do their words have any impact or influence on the Iranian people? Are they true representatives of the U.S.?

We will continue informing you in this issue and welcome any input by the news media and the people who care about the future of this great country.

4:38 AM – 0 Comments – 0 Kudos – Add Comment – Edit – Remove

Jul 15, 2007 - 4:15 am 10. Brian H:

The apologists are out in full force. The more they speak, the stupider they sound. Well done, Kian!

Jul 15, 2007 - 6:21 pm 11. Frieda:

Popularity??? what popularity? Half of country did not vote at all and the other half that did, he got about 20% of that…is that counts as popular…Get you headline straight.

And then we have George Bush who was elected with 52% of the vote, we call him unpopular President. What is wrong with this media?

Jul 16, 2007 - 8:33 pm 12. Dana:

They have really interesting videos of the Iranian student uprisings on http://www.liveleak.com. Things are changing over there.. slowly.. but the people are tired of being oppressed and I believe will keep gaining more and more freedoms until the governments can no longer hold them back. It will be a glorious day indeed when there is a free Iran.

Jul 17, 2007 - 9:09 am