In the final hours of Iran's election campaign, the top pro-reform challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got a sharp warning yesterday that authorities would crush any attempt at a popular "revolution" for freedom, while the Holocaust-denying incumbent likened his foe to Hitler.
The threat by an official of the powerful Revolutionary Guard reflected the increasingly tense atmosphere surrounding tomorrow's up-for-grabs election. It also marked a sharp escalation by the ruling clerics against the youth-driven campaign of Mir Hossein Mousavi and its hopes of an underdog victory.
The Revolutionary Guard is one of the pillars of the Islamic establishment and controls large military forces as well as a nationwide network of militia volunteers. The message from the Guards' political chief, Yadollah Javani, appeared to carry twin purposes: to rattle Mousavi's backers just before the polls and to warn that it would not tolerate the formation of a post-election political force under the banner of Mousavi's "green movement" -- the signature color of his campaign.
In a statement on the Guards' Web site, Javani drew parallels between Mousavi's campaign and the "velvet revolution" that led to the 1989 ouster of the communist government in then-Czechoslovakia.
"There are many indications that some extremist [reformist] groups, have designed a colorful revolution," the statement said.
Calling that a "sign of kicking off a velvet revolution project in the presidential elections," Javani vowed that any "attempt for velvet revolution will be nipped in the bud."
Javani also accused the reformists of planning to claim vote rigging and provoke street violence if Mousavi loses.
Ahmadinejad is believed to have wide support in the Revolutionary Guard and among Iran's ruling clerics, though neither have given public endorsements in a presidential race that has seen the sudden and unexpected rise of Mousavi, who served as prime minister in the 1980s.
There was no immediate reaction from Mousavi or his campaign, and no public rallies or speeches are allowed the day before tomorrow's vote.
Even after the official end of campaigning at midnight, tens of thousands of Mousavi supporters remained in the streets, dancing on cars and waving green flags.
The lingering images from the campaign's final hours summed up the intensity of the past weeks. Ahmadinejad drew tens of thousands of flag-waving backers as he claimed he was the victim of Nazi-style propaganda. Mousavi's backers staged a huge march through central Tehran waving the campaign's trademark color, green.
"They applied the methods of [Josef] Goebbels, propaganda minister of Hitler," Ahmadinejad told supporters. "They used this method of psychological war against our nation."
Mousavi's backers poured into the streets in Tehran yesterday in a last display of political might that has included all-night street rallies. They have called for more social freedoms, media openness and outreach to the West.
Anna Johnson, AP, 6/11/09
