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Khatami, Re-elected With Unchanged Reform Melody
Mohammad Khatami, Iran's reformist president who swept into power four years ago, clinched another major victory in Friday's presidential election by garnering over 21 million votes, or 77 percent of the total cast.
Campaigning on social, economic and political reforms, Khatami was given another chance by the Islamic republic to carry out his election pledges and materialize his vision of a freer and more open religious democracy.
Declaring his candidacy on May 4 to run for re-election, the emotional Khatami vowed again to push ahead his goal of an accountable government, greater political and social freedoms.
The election race, which pit Khatami, supported by women, intellectuals and the young, against nine other mostly conservative rivals, shaped up like a one-man race as none of the rivals has ever posed any serious threat to him.
The mildly beaming president enjoys a wide popularity throughout the country, although his reform blueprint has been torn down by conservatives and some of his envisioned plans and programs have not fully carried out.
He has been under fierce attacks by conservatives who have accused him of sacrificing the country's economy for political freedoms.
Failure to create enough job opportunities for the young is Khatami's Achilles heel that risks wearing away people's confidence in his ability to push forward his reforms.
"Patience, moderation and prudence" as well as "commitment to the ideals of the Islamic revolution" are what viewed by the moderate Khatami as prerequisites to sort out all problems of the country and meet public demands.
Facing an uphill battle, Khatami, aged 57 and a father of three, said he has "the same feeling" as in his first term to serve the people and the nation.
A black-turbaned clergy indicating he is descending from the lineage of the prophet of Islam, Khatami was born in 1943 and raised in the dry and arid city of Aradakan, central Yazd Province.
After graduation from high school, he left Yazd for the religious city of Qom to pursue Islamic studies at the theological school there.
Khatami is crowned with BA and MA degree in philosophy and speaks English, German and Arabic other than Farsi, his mother tongue.
The son of late well-known Ayatollah Ruhollah Khatami, former Friday prayer leader of Yazd, Khatami was head of Hamburg's Islamic Center in Germany, member of parliament from Ardakan as well as minister of culture and Islamic guidance.
Now the new president, with even greater mandate from the people, is going to try hard to build an Islamic republic in which, as he said, religion and democracy should be linked.
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