Iranian blogger Hossein Derakshan has written a fascinating comment on the new president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for Guardian Unlimited today. Here is an extract:
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's win reflects a significant socio-economic gap in Iranian society. But it would be wrong to view his victory as a sign that people are tired of reform and have given up hope of change toward a transparent democracy.
Mr Ahmadinejad, a moral conservative, does not represent the majority of Iranians, two-thirds of whom are under 30 and many of those liberal in orientation. Neither does he represent the continuation of Ayatollah Khomeini's vision for the future of Iran. Rather, he is someone through whom the supreme leader will, for the first time, try to manage the executive branch of the regime.
Many western journalists, although regretful for having covered Iran with a distorting focus on the educated and well-off middle-class in Tehran, have started to get things wrong again - but in the opposite way. As Iranians say, they are now falling off the roof from the other side.
They have begun talking about Mr Ahmadinejad as if he were the Muslim reincarnation of Che Guevara.
You can read it in full here and leave your comments below.
