By Geneive Abdo
Iran Analyst, The Century Foundation

In the final days before Iran’s June 12 presidential election, the leading contenders are using a mix of old and new campaign techniques, including social networking sites like Facebook, to win over a powerful but elusive constituency – the country’s university students.

University campuses have played a vital role in revolutionary politics in Iran. Students are feared among Iran’s ruling political elites; they actively participate in elections and their influence extends beyond their generation. In 1979, students were instrumental in ousting the Shah during the Islamic revolution. During the “Tehran Spring,” from 1997-1999, student leaders helped bring former President Mohammed Khatami and the reform movement to power and then tried, unsuccessfully, to ring in a new era of democracy by staging widespread riots throughout Iran.

In 2005, to show their opposition to then-candidate Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the students launched an effective election boycott and voter turnout was low, casting doubt on the legitimacy of the election. Since Ahmadinejad’s victory, the declared objective of the Office to Consolidate Unity (Daftar-e-Takhim-e-Vahdat), an umbrella group that leads an amorphous national student movement, is to spread their ideas beyond their campuses into mainstream Iranian society. Like Iranians of all ages, the students favor less state interference in their lives, a more democratic political system, and an end to widespread human rights violations.

For these reasons, the candidates in the upcoming June 12 presidential poll are competing for the support of young voters. As with past elections, university campuses have become key battlegrounds for debating the country’s political future. In fact, since campaigning began in the spring, Iran’s conservative leadership on occasion has banned reformist candidates from making speeches at universities and forced them to either cancel the events or address students from the streets outside the campuses. Reformists have accused the authorities of hindering their efforts to rally student support.

The three main rivals to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are seizing upon the opportunity to distinguish themselves from the Iranian president, who students believe is largely responsible for a crackdown on social freedom. Iran’s young generation also blames the president for high unemployment among youth and Iran’s negative image in the West.

Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the reformist who stands the best chance of gaining student support, has campaigned at dozens of university campuses across the country before enthusiastic crowds. His candid speeches, modest appearance, and years as an artist have gained the trust of young voters. One of his main messages targeted toward youth is that he is concerned about the restrictions on social freedom and the violations of civil liberties. Mousavi has used several gimmicks to win support, including likening his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, to U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama.

Before thousands of students at Ferdowsi University in Mashhad on April 23, Mousavi said: “It is not clear why we look at universities and students as a security risk … A number of our students are in prison.” His comments were a direct criticism of President Ahmadinejad’s policies, which have led to the widespread imprisonment of Iranian activists, including students. “I am against political arrests and consider them against the interests of the country,” he said.

Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the other reformist presidential contender, are struggling to compete with Ahmadinejad’s vast government resources, which include daily access to the state monopoly on radio and television programming. Even though by law all presidential candidates are officially allowed access to the state-controlled media, it is severely limited. For example, Tehran’s notorious Prosecutor General, Saeed Mortazavi, closed the reformist-leaning newspaper Yas-e-Now in mid-May, after the paper published a headline, “Khatami, Mousavi for Iran,” with a large photograph of the two men standing among their supporters.

Mousavi is appealing to the technology-savvy youth, who have access to email and cell phones. Two-thirds of Iranians have mobile phones, 21 million have access to the internet, and 60 per cent of Iran’s 70 million people are under the age of 30. According to the World Bank, approximately 12.4 million eligible voters – roughly 27 percent of the electorate – are between the ages of 20 and 29.

• More:
  Charts with statistics on Iranian population by age and presidential election year (see right), and eligible voters by age and presidential election year

Mousavi’s campaign is capitalizing on the popularity of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to create grassroots support for his candidacy. New media is being used by other candidates as well, including Ahmadinejad and Karroubi. In early May, Mousavi opened about 20 Facebook pages, which attracted 7,500 members. Facebook is being employed particularly among those working to defeat Ahmadinejad in his bid for re-election. One page called “I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike Mahmoud Ahmadinejad” has attracted more than 35,000 members – a considerable number, if still well short of its own goal.

Mousavi’s supporters are also using blogs as a platform to communicate directly with young voters and inform them of the candidate’s ideas and campaign activities. Massoumeh Ebtekar, the well-known spokeswoman for the Iranian hostage-takers in 1979 and later the country’s first woman vice president under Khatami, has created the blog “Persian Paradox.” In one entry, she writes about her latest campaign stop to gain support for Mousavi. “I spoke at a University in Qom last night. There were about 300 students and the topic of the meeting was: Why Mousavi? Supporters of the current government criticized reformist policies. I replied patiently … Mousavi has spoken clearly in support of individual freedoms, the rule of law, women’s rights, the need for economic and political reform and many other issues … The campaign is gaining momentum and young people are fervently engaged.”

Mohsen Rezai, the former Revolutionary Guards Commander who is another leading presidential candidate, has also reached out to students. At campaign stops at universities in recent days, he has criticized Ahmadinejad, a fellow conservative who is his main rival on the right. He also has used his appearances to win support for the coalition government of conservatives and reformists he hopes to form if he is elected. At Sharif University, Rezai appealed to the youth’s interest in a less conservative government, particularly one that is tolerant of Iran’s diverse population. “We will form an efficient coalition government and coalition among ethnicities is our goal,” he told students at Sharif University. “I love Iran and do not consider discrimination among ethnicities to benefit the country.”

For his part, the incumbent Ahmadinejad, who is also using Facebook in his campaign but whose visits with students are less frequent than the other candidates, is employing a strategy common among Iran’s conservative leaders. He has organized buses to transport students, government workers and soldiers to attend his public appearances in order to swell the numbers in the audience. The reform movement, including Mousavi, has criticized this strategy, which sparked a national debate in early May, after a student was killed in a bus crash as he was transferred from the southern town of Farsa to Shiraz to attend a speech given by Ahmadinejad. “Closing down schools and departments and forcing students, clerks and soldiers to attend a welcome ceremony for government officials is nothing new but at what price?” asked the reformist daily newspaper Etemad-e-Melli on May 2.

In the last several elections, student leaders have expressed frustration at Iran’s murky electoral system, which allows for considerable interference by conservative clerics and generally lacks transparency. Iran’s main student opposition group, the Office to Consolidate Unity, stated in parliamentary elections in 2006 that neither participation nor a boycott would make any real difference to the nation’s political course.

This sentiment is also shared among student leaders this election. They have made it clear that they no longer have enormous faith in the reformists, as they did when they fervently supported Khatami. Students have become disillusioned; they have realized since Khatami’s presidency from 1997 through 2005 that it will take far more than their votes – such as revising the constitution – to fundamentally change Iran’s political system. Although they appear to favor Mousavi over the other candidates, they also have stated that no faction – reformist or otherwise – should count on their vote. In January 2008, Mehdi Arabshahi, a leader in the Office to Consolidate Unity, said the organization would not repeat its past mistakes by viewing elections as “a remedy for all the nation’s troubles.”

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Published on May 21, 2009