Local promises in Iran: Ahmadinejad's election trump card?
HAMEDAN, Iran (AFP) — On a visit to Iran's central province of Hamedan last year, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made over 50 promises to build new schools, factories and local infrastructure in speeches to mass rallies.
This pattern of speeches and pledges was repeated across the country, and Ahmadinejad has now visited all 30 Iranian provinces -- tours that are as contentious as his confrontational stance in the nuclear crisis.
For the government, the local promises fulfill Ahmadinejad's slogan to bring justice to Iran by spreading its wealth to the poor.
But his detractors say their aim is to ensure his reelection in 2009 and that they have harmed the poor by triggering a spike in inflation.
"Hamedan province has been one of our most successful provinces in implementing the decisions," top government official Morteza Dadkhah told AFP while on a visit to the arid region to check on progress.
With the world's attention still focused on the nuclear crisis, Ahmadinejad has begun revisiting the provinces to follow up on his promises ahead of crucial parliamentary elections on March 14.
The people of Hamedan province were promised projects such as two large petrochemical plants, a steel mill and a vocational school.
"They told us that the president broke the ground for the centre during his visit to our province," said Massoumeh Behravan, a computer teacher at a vocational school in Razan, north of the provincial capital Hamedan city.
"I am happy with what he did, and if he runs again I will vote for him."
The provincial trips have become one of the most distinctive features of the Ahmadinejad presidency, marked by his populist speeches with fiery invective against the West and concluding with a litany of local promises.
In the absence of reliable opinion polls, it remains to be seen whether Ahmadinejad's exhausting campaign of provincial trips will ensure his success in the parliamentary polls and then re-election as president in 2009.
His supporters lost out nationwide in municipal elections last year, and it is impossible to predict if Ahmadinejad's undeniable charisma will secure him another four-year term in office.
The president's economic critics have slammed the regional tours for fuelling inflation in the Islamic republic by flooding the economy with extra liquidity to fund local projects.
According to the Iranian central bank, inflation rose to 15.8 percent in September compared with 8.9 percent the previous year. Some independent economists put the figure at more than 20 percent.
The rise in prices has been particularly sharp in basic foodstuffs, hitting the poor hardest -- the very constituency that Ahmadinejad vowed to help.
"The pressure is on the poor the most," said economic analyst Saeed Leylaz.
"All of this results from the inner contradictions in his economic policies, a lack of planning, populist tendencies and not taking the future into account."
Leylaz acknowledged that narrowing the gap between rich and poor in Iran was a priority. "Unfortunately we suffer from underdevelopment. It's a reality. He was not talking nonsense."
Dadkhah, who is a deputy of Iranian vice president for executive affairs Ali Saedloo, defended government spending, saying none of the money came direct from the presidency.
He said the cash comes from existing funds earmarked for the provinces, ministry money, or loans in both Iranian and foreign currency.
"The government cannot just go and spend without parliament's approval. In these provincial trips we enhance the efficiency of what we already have," he said.
One of Ahmadinejad's most controversial decisions was his move to integrate Iran's economic planning organisation into the government in a bid to increase his control over local spending.
"What he did is contrary to the fundamentals of planning," said Mohammad Javad Haghshenas, director of the reformist Etemad-e Melli newspaper.
He said the decision to dissolve the Management and Planning Organisation (MPO) had taken planning back to the time of the Qajars, the monarchs who ruled Iran until 1925.
"His planning is based on centralised planning relying on an inner circle of advisers," Haghshenas said.
"At the start, the first provincial trips were exciting and were able to get people's attention. But with the passage of time and particularly with the lack of success the attraction was gone," he said.
