'I am proud of being Iran's little servant and street sweeper'

The Telegraph UK:

By official edict there were no victory parades for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the streets of the Iranian capital yesterday.

Iran's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

The mayor of Teheran, who shocked the world with his surprise victory in Iran's presidential run-off poll on Friday, is an ultra-conservative who craves a return to the ideol-ogies of the Islamic revolution of 1979.

Yesterday, the people of Iran were given, perhaps, an early taste of things to come, as public celebrations and opposition demonstrations were banned by the country's all-powerful religious supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His decree was seen as a reflection of official fears that Mr Ahmad-inejad's win might spark a return of the reformist protests in 2003, which were crushed. READ MORE

Even Mr Ahmad-inejad's first public remarks after the landslide result were pre-recorded. In a short broadcast on state-run radio, Iran's new president said he wanted to create a "modern, advanced, powerful and Islamic" model for the world.

Ayatollah Khamenei said the election result was also a swipe at America. "Despite its babbling, your enemy is now humiliated deep inside because of your greatness and the transparency of your democracy," he told Iranians in a televised message.

Other countries, however, greeted Mr Ahmad-inejad's victory over Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the reform-minded cleric and ex- president, with extreme caution.

Mr Ahmad-inejad's populist campaign played heavily on anti-American rhetoric. He accused Iran's nuclear negotiators of granting too many concessions to Europe, and was particularly critical of the freezing of Teheran's controversial uranium enrichment programme. America insists that it conceals a hidden weapons agenda - a claim Iran denies.

A spokesman for the US State Department said: "We remain sceptical that the Iranian regime is interested in addressing either the legitimate desires of its own -people or the concerns of the broader international community."

Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, also reacted coolly, citing "serious deficiencies" in the voting process, in which hundreds of candidates - including all women - were vetoed by Iran's cleric-dominated Guardian Council.

"I hope that under Mr. Ahmadinejad's presidency, Iran will take early steps to address international concerns about its nuclear programme and policies towards terrorism, human rights and the Middle East peace process," said Mr Straw.

The result hands conservatives control of Iran's two highest elected offices, the presidency and parliament, and gives the non-elected theocracy, which has the final say on all important policy decisions, an even stronger grip.

The win proved as decisive as it was unexpected. Mr Ahmad-inejad, 49, who made much of coming from humble stock, won nearly two-thirds of the ballots cast after successfully tapping into the disaffection of poorer voters.

Even though Iran is the world's second-biggest oil producer, un-employment is soaring and the gap between rich and poor is widening all the time.

"Today is the beginning of a new political era," Mr Ahmad-inejad said as he cast his vote. Referring to an occasion when he joined street sweepers in a populist display, he added: "I am proud of being the Iranian nation's little servant and street sweeper."

His election was greeted with horror by liberals and moderate conservatives, who believe that he will turn his back on nearly a decade of political reform.

While Mr Rafsanjani, 70, a veteran statesman, had promised a new period of dialogue with America, the new president has shown no such enthusiasm. He is expected to put future talks on Iran's nuclear ambitions into the hands of anti-Western clerics.

Pro-reformist voters said the chances of a fully democratic Iran had now vanished for a generation. "This will postpone democracy for at least 20 years," said Elahi Montazari, 29, a businesswoman who cast her ballot for Mr Rafsanjani. "It will be a disaster."

Yet poorer Iranians had felt growing resentment over the liberal measures introduced in 1997 by the outgoing president, Mohammed Khatami, who prised the country open to foreign trade and Western-style innovations such as the internet and satellite television.

They believe that the reforms have resulted in moral corruption and benefited only the rich.

None the less, Mr Ahmad-inejad has dismissed as "rumours" claims by opponents that he will scrap the tentative social freedoms of recent years, which have seen unmarried couples flirting in the streets and women wearing coloured headscarves.

He also denies claims that he banned adverts of David Beckham while he was Teheran mayor, and ordered male city hall employees to grow beards.

At the same time, he has made no secret of his contempt for much of his predecessor's record, complaining of an "organised promotion of decadence" and saying that freedom in Iran was "already beyond what could be imagined".

Although Friday's poll was originally billed as being too close to call, results confirmed yesterday gave Iran's new political leader 62.2 per cent of the vote, compared with Mr Rafsanjani's 35.3 per cent. Some of Mr Ahmad-inejad's opponents questioned the result, claiming that the rank outsider's spectacular victory was the result of illegally mobilising Iran's army and pro-religious militias in his support. There were isolated reports of ballot-rigging.

The new president has promised Iran's underclass higher wages, better development funds and a bigger share of the country's vast oil wealth, which many feel has been siphoned off to benefit Teheran's urban elite.

Pledges such as these played against his opponent, whose private business empire typified, for many, a breed of fat-cat clergy that has emerged in recent years.

Whether the new president's policies will match his rhetoric remains to be seen. Elected politicians still have relatively little power.

In his first public comments, the new president appeared anxious to heal divisions between liberals and hard-liners exposed by the campaign.

"Let's convert competition to friendship. We are all a nation and a big family," he said.

An Iranian opposition exile claimed that Mr Ahmad-inejad had been charged with leading a team to kill the British author, Salman Rushdie, after Iran's late leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa against him in 1989 over his book The Satanic Verses.

Maryam Rajavi, the president of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said in Paris that Mr Ahmadinejad was a revolutionary guard at the time. His aides denied the allegations.