Mousavi's Masterstroke

Mousavi Strikes Back

By AFSHIN SALIMPOUR in Tehran

Tonight, an hour and a half of live television redefined the nature of the election campaign -- for the second time this week. It began with Mehdi Karroubi, still reeling from the blows dealt to him by a supremely confident Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the previous night's debate.

"I believe I need to begin by defending myself," he growled.

Hunched over the papers before him and visibly tired, he read from a prepared speech, his deep Lorestan gravel now hoarse with fatigue. The fiery septuagenarian, so often seen with arms flailing aloft among the melee of his passionate young supporters, was now a barely glowing ember. Both moderator and Mousavi listened politely to a man who sounded like he was reading his own political obituary.

The incumbent president's own campaign-busting moment came the night before when he unleashed a barrage of statistics to which Karroubi had no answer but which were brought into question less than a day later. But a masterful piece of theatre it certainly was, complete with coloured charts for the camera to zoom-in on, and peppered with accusations about alleged financial irregularities that Karroubi could do nothing about but fluster and grumble. But if Karroubi had been caught off guard, his misfortune bought Mir Hossein Mousavi 24 hours to prepare a comeback.

"It has been said that the rate of inflation is 15%," he began with Ahmadinejad's boldest claim. Earlier in the day, one of Iran's state media outlets had already relayed confirmation from Iran's Central Bank that inflation stood at just over 25% -- considerably higher than the president's claim. Mousavi made explicit the inference that many of his supporters had already been making that day and throughout the campaign -- that the president's economic figures were "lies."

"We have asked experts to produce these figures," Mousavi said drawing out a second graph to compare with the first. "My dear people you can compare them for yourselves."

Mousavi wore a wry smile tonight as he motioned from one graph to the other, a clear contrast with the shell-shocked countenance that sat mute opposite the president last Wednesday. That night, it was all he could do to parry Ahmadinejad's attacks and express his distaste at the president's tactics. This time, he was composed enough to sell his own strengths as wartime Prime Minister and a leader capable of tackling Iran's current problems. Mousavi reeled off a list of social indicators which had improved under the most difficult of conditions -- from infant mortality to life expectancy -- before turning his attention back to Ahmadinejad.

"I sense that over the past weeks, my presence in the campaign has been an excuse to attack the record of the first decade of the revolution," he said, his voice rising in pitch as he grew increasingly earnest and animated.

"Is it worth lying to the people to win the presidency by tarnishing a period that the whole nation is proud of?"

From the battle of words to the growing physical confrontation

The plug had literally been pulled on a Mousavi campaign event scheduled in the city of Karaj yesterday. No electricity to run the public address system. Mousavi cried sabotage and mentioned that campaign buses had been pelted with stones as they began the drive home. In the days since the Mousavi-Ahmadinejad debate the tension has been palbable. Small bands of government supporters have positioned themselves on Tehran's byways, forming checkpoints to vet passing cars for the right symbols of allegiance. At Tajrish Square I saw one band attack a passing Kia Pride with kicks and thumps.

"For eight years I withstood shells and tanks and I resisted political movements that were against me. I was a strong man then and I have not changed."

Just as the sensitive, introverted artist had found his voice and stood up to the bully, the debate moderator, utterly spineless until now sensed that things were getting out of hand. He attempted to bring the dialogue back to those present but Mousavi was having none of it.

"When others are sitting here you say nothing... he [Ahmadinejad] can come here and say any lies he wants and you don't say anything!"

"He's not ashamed? Right in front of me he holds up a photograph as if he's playing a game. What was he thinking?"

Saying this, Mousavi picked up a tissue from the desk in front of him and raised it in his fingertips. It was a parody of how Ahmadinejad in their own debate had paraded a copy of the doctorate certificate of Mousavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, claiming it to be a fake. The tissue flopped forwards pathetically, as if to emphasise the disdain with which Mousavi held the president's ploy.

"I am speaking to the people. People... compare for yourselves all the things that have been said. Remember the graphs I showed you. They were altering the curves to fool you. I needed to say that to the people and now I have."

"I am a strong man, I was strong then and I am the same now. I haven't changed," Mousavi said.

Tonight he may well have proved it, not only to his supporters, but also to himself.

Copyright (c) 2009 Tehran Bureau