Sprawling protests in Iran for and against president

TEHRAN — A pair of sprawling demonstrations brought Iran's capital virtually to a standstill Monday, with followers of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his main electoral challenger struggling to demonstrate their street following ahead of presidential elections Friday.

The demonstrations were Iran's largest gatherings in more than a decade, veteran political observers said.

Iranian elections always bring a loosening of rules on public speech and behavior, but many say this year's election is different, in part because of the social crackdown of the past four years under Ahmadinejad.

"What's happening now is more than what should happen before an election," said Mashalah Shamsolvaezin, a political commentator and former director of several reformist newspapers. "This is an expression of protest and dissatisfaction by people. They are venting their frustration and feeling very powerful."

Ahmadinejad's campaign Monday afternoon organized a huge rally in a prayer hall in central Tehran, where tens of thousands of chanting supporters gathered apparently in an effort to match the raucous outdoor rallies that are being held nightly by followers of Mir Hossein Mousavi, his leading challenger for the presidency.

But the president's rally was overmatched in turn by a larger, simultaneous demonstration by Mousavi's followers, who formed a human sea that blocked traffic for miles along one of Tehran's main boulevards.

The rally stretched nearly the entire 12-mile length of Vali Asr — a famous avenue that bisects Tehran from the conservative strongholds in the older flatland neighborhoods to the south from the liberal-minded bastions on the slopes of the Alborz mountain range in the north.

The road — shaded in many places by towering plane trees — was turned into a river of green by Mousavi supporters carrying banners, head scarfs, ribbons and anything else in the campaign's trademark color.

The rallies underscored the unusual passions being aroused by the campaign, in which the leading candidates have exchanged accusations that are extraordinarily fierce for Iranian politics. There have been scattered street clashes in recent days, but police generally have not intervened, in part — analysts say — because they do not want to unleash protests by the unruly and mostly young crowds.

The rallies appear to have surprised and unsettled authorities, and Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a message broadcast on state television, warned against any further escalation. "I don't want to comment about people coming onto the streets, but they should not turn into confrontation or clashes between supporters of the candidates," Khamenei said.

The rally by Mousavi's supporters Monday was motivated partly by anger at Ahmadinejad, whose campaign rescheduled its rally in a way that displaced an event by Mousavi. He had planned to give a speech in the same prayer hall where Ahmadinejad appeared Monday.

The campaign has included fierce spoken exchanges among the candidates, especially in presidential debates of the past week, in which Ahmadinejad accused leading figures of the 1979 revolution of corruption.

On Monday, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former two-term president and one of Ahmadinejad's chief targets, defended himself for the first time.

"Unfortunately," Rafsanjani said, "the course of the election has become tainted with all sorts of lies and slanderous statements. Smear tactics against individuals may be eventually pardoned and excused, but when they step out of line and target the basic principles of the Islamic revolution, they become unforgivable."

Although the harsh criticisms have shocked many Iranians, they seem to have played well with Ahmadinejad's followers, who view them as a natural part of his populist campaign against the rich and the corrupt.

"The best thing Ahmadinejad did was to take away the sanctity of some of the regime's leaders," said Meysam Safavi, who had come from the holy city of Qum, south of Tehran, to join a huge crowd of Ahmadinejad supporters Monday.

Another supporter, Javed Kia, 38, said "those people whom he criticized were not honest, they were not good for the Iranian people. But Ahmadinejad is honest. He is not afraid of other countries, and he gave us self-confidence."

As it happened, crowds at Ahmadinejad's rally were so thick that he was not able to reach the podium in time to speak, and many supporters left early. At the same time, not far away, thousands of Mousavi's supporters crowded the streets, creating traffic jams so heavy that the blocked roads were full of people walking home through idle cars.

Ahmadinejad's opponents have been saying for weeks that they are concerned that the government will rig the vote in his favor. On Monday, a group of Interior Ministry employees released a letter saying a senior cleric close to Ahmadinejad had authorized fixing the vote in his favor, several reformist Web sites reported.

The head of Iran's election board, Kamran Daneshjoo, also said the voter turnout could surpass the 79.93 percent in 1997 when reformist Mohammad Khatami came to power.

Two other candidates are in the race. Former Parliament speaker Mahdi Karroubi, a moderate, could siphon votes from Mousavi. Mohsen Rezaei, a former commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard, threatens to undercut Ahmadinejad's conservative base.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.