Iran's Mousavi Has Legacy Of Leadership

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STEVE INSKEEP, host:

Pakistan's neighbor Iran is near the end of its presidential campaign. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is under pressure because of a tough economy and his tough stance toward the West. Opposition to the president energized Iran's huge population of young people. Our correspondent in Tehran describes a rally yesterday where tens of thousands of people attended, almost all of them young.

Some young people are in the classes of a college professor we reached in Tehran. Mohammad Hassan Khani has seen some of the rallies in the streets, and he's been watching the president's main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who was prime minister during Iran's war with Iraq.

Professor MOHAMMAD HASSAN KHANI (Political Science, Imam Sadeq University): The legacy that Mousavi left behind was a very good one, a very positive one in terms of his capability to manage a country under war, under sanctions. I mean, it was somehow a miracle that someone could take a country out of that crisis. So I think there are those Iranians of that age who remembered that and admire him for that legacy. So maybe this is the most important capital that he now holds in his hands facing his rivals.

INSKEEP: What does it mean that, as Mousavi has campaigned as one of the opponents of Iran's president, that his wife has also been out campaigning?

Prof KHANI: She is an intellectual. She is a university professor. She somehow is very different from the wives of the former presidents, very socially active in the society. So she can be seen as a symbol of the Iranian women who are now campaigning for their rights within the lines of the Islamic Republic. So in that sense, she's playing a big role.

INSKEEP: So what kinds of things have you been seeing this week or the last several days as you've moved about the universities where you teach and the streets of Tehran?

Prof. KHANI: Very interesting scenes, I mean, in Tehran and most other big cities during the past few days. From the early afternoon until late midnight, thousands of supporters of each candidate gather in the main streets and squares chanting slogans and also discussing issues related to political and economic development of the country. They have been creating a sense of fresh hopes and optimism in the society. The people that are gathering, they're discussing with each other the vocabulary such as political participation, political openness, rule of law, transparency, accountability, I mean, civil and human rights, women's rights and so on and so forth. They are now being used frequently, and it seems that these kind of debates and dialogues and discussion in public is something important in the process of evolution of Iranian society toward democratization, in my view.

INSKEEP: You're saying it's not just that the size of these demonstrations is new, the very words that are being used, things like rule of law or transparency. You're saying that people would not have discussed concepts like that in previous elections.

Prof. KHANI: Not in that level. I mean, there have been these kind of discussions in academic circles, for example. But now there are those from different classes, talking to each other and trying to explain how these concepts can be implemented in Iran and the Iranian society, which is basically a religious society. My understanding is that we are now just approaching how we can reconcile religion and democracy, and that will make a good basis for the future of democracy in Iran.

INSKEEP: Professor Mohammad Hassan Khani teachers at Imam Sadeq University in Tehran. Thanks very much.

Prof. KHANI: My pleasure.

INSKEEP: And he is one of the Iranians who vote on Friday. They face a choice between the president and a total of three challengers who were permitted to run by Iran's authorities. If no candidate wins an outright majority, Iranians vote again in a runoff election.

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