Ahmadinejad losing rural voters this time

Washington Post:

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Little more than a strip of houses along the highway, the town is like many in Iran's provinces, drab and frozen in time. Unemployed young men drive around aimlessly on sputtering mopeds, and litter lines the sides of the road. A green sign next to the highway points visitors toward the local mosque.

In the 2005 election, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received a large part of his support from Fars and the other central provinces. His victory was achieved through a word-of-mouth campaign led by members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps and voluntary paramilitary units known as baseej, who promoted the then-unknown candidate to farmers and laborers in towns such as Dast-e Arzhan.

In the years since, Ahmadinejad has focused policies based on spreading the wealth on these backwater regions, which he has visited regularly during his term. But despite the widely held view that his support remains strong in rural areas, many of Dast-e Arzhan's 3,000 residents say they plan to vote for his main opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, in Friday's election. They say that Ahmadinejad has not lived up to his promises and that they are worse off since he came to power.

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Ahmadinejad has alienated much of the world with his pursuit of nukes which has led to the imposition of some sanctions on the country that could be increased. His bellicosity has also given credence to Iran's reputation as a pariah state. His backing of Sadr in Iraq was a failure. The Hezballah war against Israel was a strategic failure also. It is hard to understand why anyone will be backing him.