Robert Fisk 51

Ahmadinejad whips crowd to frenzy as opposition muzzled

As the nation tried to digest the results of this momentous poll, Robert Fisk saw two sides to the controversial winner

Monday, 15 June 2009

It was a surreal day, an ominous day in Tehran yesterday, of censored newspapers and of soft words and threats against Mahmoud Ahmedinejad's political opponent, Mirhossein Mousavi. We didn't even know where Mousavi was – in custody or house arrest – nor whether a hundred of his election campaign workers had been arrested. It was a day heavy with plain-clothes policemen, blocked roads and jeering supporters of the government. No, there will not be another revolution in Iran. But this is not quite the democracy that Ahmedinejad promised.

True, we met Ahmedinejad the Good yesterday, preaching to us at an elaborately-staged press conference, talking of the noble, compassionate, honourable, smart people of Iran. But we also met Ahmedinejad the Bad, swearing to thousands of baying supporters that he would name the "corrupt" men who had stood against him in Friday's election.

I'm still not at all sure we met President Ahmedinejad, always supposing we believe in the 63.62 per cent of the votes that he claims he picked up. For what do you make of a man who five times refers to the presidential poll as a football match and then utters – in front of us all – in the softest of voices and with the gentlest and most chilling of smiles, a terrible warning to the mysteriously absent Mousavi. "After a football match, sometimes people feel their side should have won and they get into their car outside and drive through a red light and they get a ticket from a policeman. He didn't wait for the red light to change. I am not at all happy that someone ignores the red light." We all drew in our breath.

Less than two hours later, before the sweating thousands of his supporters in Val-y-Asr Square, we saw Ahmedinejad the Bad. "They are branding us as liars and corrupt," he screamed. "But they are themselves corrupt. I am going to use my position as president to name these people..." The crowd roared its approval. Of course they did. They all held Iranian flags or pictures of their pious leader amid heavenly clouds.

The day started badly with another of those dangerous, frighteningly brief statements from Tehran's loquacious police commander, Bahram Radan. "We have identified houses which are bases for the political mobs." This was the only reference the authorities would make about the outrageous street battles in which Radan's black-clothed cops beat Mousavi's supporters insensible on the streets of Tehran.

Then there was the front page of "Etemade Melli" – "National Trust" in English – which belongs to another of Ahmedinejad's enemies, Mehdi Karoubi. After the election results at the top of the front page – Mousavi officially won only 33.75 per cent of the votes and Karoubi 0.85 per cent – there was a caption: "Regarding the election results," it read, "Mehdi Karoubi and Mirhossein Mousavi made statements which we cannot publish in our newspaper." Beneath was a vast acre of white space. You could doodle on it. You could construct a crossword on it. You could draw a red light on it. But you couldn't read those statements.

And just to rub home the message – which we heard in various forms all day – a postage-stamp size photograph of Tehran's cops running down a street appeared at the top of page two with two worrying sentences. "The Public Security Police have delivered a statement, stating that any kind of gatherings, demonstrations or celebrations without a licence are forbidden. Any kind of gathering would be unlawful and the consequences will lie on the shoulders of the candidates and their campaign offices." We all knew what that meant; indeed, we approached Ahmedinejad's press conference with the absolute conviction that there would be more threats; there were, but they couldn't have been made in a kinder, more sinister way.

Lees verder: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/

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