In the first round, there were to be eight candidates:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (the then mayor of Tehran) Mehdi Karrubi (a key Khatami ally; a candidate of the reformist Assembly of Combatant Clerics; Speaker of the sixth Majles) Ali Larijani (former state television chief; Supreme Leader's representative in National Security Council) Mohsen Mehralizadeh (Vice-President and Head of National Sports Organization, a reformist) Mostafa Moin (the candidate of the Islamic Iran Participation Party, which is part of the reformist Second of Khordad Front that dominated parliament until 2004; Khatami's minister of science) Mohammad Baqir Qalibaf (head of the national police force till shortly before the elections) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (head of the Expediency Council since 1997; acting commander in chief of the armed forces in 1988-1989; the 4th President of Iran, 1989-1997) Mohsen Rezai (a former Revolutionary Guards commander -- Rezai later withdrew) (Kaveh Ehsani, "Iran's Presidential Runoff: The Long View," 24 June 2005: <http://www.merip.org/mero/mero062405.html>).
Some Iranian reformists, like Shirin Ebadi and Akbar Ganji, called for the boycott of elections -- Ganji called for the boycott of the entire elections, while Ebadi came out for the boycott of the runoff: <http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EF5ED1CC-5F71-4557-ADCF-F7B68D752CB5.htm> <http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2005/may-2005/ganji-manifesto-22505.shtml>.
Note that all the candidates other than Ahmadinejad held top positions of power in Iranian politics and had ample opportunities to anger or disappoint Iranians before the elections. In an important sense, the 2005 presidential elections in Iran were "throw-the-bums-out" elections.
Between Karrubi and Moin, Moin was the more neoliberal of the two: "the reformists surrounding Moin continued to direct their appeals to the middle classes, and openly spoke of themselves as a party of 'the elite'" (Kaveh Ehsani, "Iran's Presidential Runoff: The Long View," 24 June 2005, <http://www.merip.org/mero/mero062405.html>). IMHO, the reformists, if they really wanted to get their candidate to the runoff, should have made Moin and Mehralizadeh withdraw, prompted Ganji, et al. to give up on the futile boycott, and had them all back Karrubi. But there was no unity at all in the reformist electoral camp.
In the first round, Rafsanjani received 21% of the votes; Ahmadinejad, 19%; Karrubi, 17%; Qalibaf, 14%; Moin, 14%; Larijani, 6%; and Mehralizadeh, 4%.
The runoff pitted Ahmadinejad against Rafsanjani. Between them, the choice was clear to the Iranian people:
<blockquote>[T]he man most adept at manipulating this hidden power structure is one of Iran's best-known characters--Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has been named an ayatollah, or religious leader. He was the speaker of parliament and Khomeini's right-hand man in the 1980s, president of Iran from 1989 to 1997 and is now chairman of the powerful Expediency Council, which resolves disputes between the clerical establishment and parliament. Rafsanjani has more or less run the Islamic Republic for the past 24 years.
He played it smart, aligning himself in the 1960s with factions led by Ayatollah Khomeini, then becoming the go-to guy after the revolution. A hard-liner ideologically, Rafsanjani nonetheless has a pragmatic streak. He convinced Khomeini to end the Iran-Iraq war and broke Iran's international isolation by establishing trade relations with the Soviet Union, China, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. In the 1990s he restarted Iran's nuclear program.
He is also the father of Iran's "privatization" program. During his presidency the stock market was revived, some government companies were sold to insiders, foreign trade was liberalized and the oil sector was opened up to private companies. Most of the good properties and contracts, say dissident members of Iran's Chamber of Commerce, ended up in the hands of mullahs, their associates and, not least, Rafsanjani's family, who rose from modest origins as pistachio farmers. "They were not rich people, so they worked hard and always tried to help their relatives get ahead," remembers Reza, a historian who declines to use his last name and who studied with one of Rafsanjani's brothers at Tehran University in the early 1970s. "When they were in university, two brothers earned money on the side tutoring theological students and preparing their exam papers."
The 1979 revolution transformed the Rafsanjani clan into commercial pashas. One brother headed the country's largest copper mine; another took control of the state-owned TV network; a brother-in-law became governor of Kerman province, while a cousin runs an outfit that dominates Iran's $400 million pistachio export business; a nephew and one of Rafsanjani's sons took key positions in the Ministry of Oil; another son heads the Tehran Metro construction project (an estimated $700 million spent so far). Today, operating through various foundations and front companies, the family is also believed to control one of Iran's biggest oil engineering companies, a plant assembling Daewoo automobiles, and Iran's best private airline (though the Rafsanjanis insist they do not own these assets).
None of this sits well with the populace, whose per capita income is $1,800 a year. The gossip on the street, going well beyond the observable facts, has the Rafsanjanis stashing billions of dollars in bank accounts in Switzerland and Luxembourg; controlling huge swaths of waterfront in Iran's free economic zones on the Persian Gulf; and owning whole vacation resorts on the idyllic beaches of Dubai, Goa and Thailand.
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Some of the family's wealth is out there for all to see. Rafsanjani's youngest son, Yaser, owns a 30-acre horse farm in the superfashionable Lavasan neighborhood of north Tehran, where land goes for over $4 million an acre. Just where did Yaser get his money? A Belgian-educated businessman, he runs a large export-import firm that includes baby food, bottled water and industrial machinery. (Paul Klebnikov, "Millionaire Mullahs," Forbes, 21 July 03, <http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/0721/024_print.html>)</blockquote>
In contrast, Ahmadinejad -- both his life and platform -- appealed to workers and peasants: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>.
It didn't hurt that he looks the part. -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>