EIGHTEEN Years after Iran's Muslim clerics launched a revolution in the name of the Almighty and Islam, freedom of thought has become the principal election issue in today's presidential poll. Many Iranians are demanding an easing of the restrictions which govern social life and freedom of expression in literature, speech and broadcasting. Women voters, too, want a greater role in this hitherto all-male political system.
At first glance, there seems not much of a choice on offer - three of the candidates are clergymen, and the fourth a former revolutionary judge with a grisly track record. Behind the turbans though, Iranian voters are being offered a real choice for the first time since 1979, for the two front- runners have sharply differing ideas and policies.
Until a few weeks ago, the contest was considered all but sewn up. The lead of Nateq Nouri, hardline cleric and the powerful speaker of parliament, was unassailable. In the last few days though, support for his more moderate rival, Ayatollah Khatemi, has soared.
As the campaign closed in Tehran yesterday, Ayatollah Khatemi's young supporters, many of them girls, stood by the roadside waving his portrait at passing motorists. Young men dressed in western-style T-shirts and jeans shouted just one slogan "freedom, freedom". Nouri's men were nowhere to be seen.
Nateq Nouri's supporters blame skilful spin-doctoring for the surge in Ayatollah Khatemi's support. His campaign was managed by Mohammed Karbaschi, the slick, Calvin Klein-suited mayor of Tehran. While Nouri talked of job creation and privatisation, Khatemi talked of more populist subjects such as culture and the need to help youth.
In a televised debate on the issues, he declared the best way to fight the West's cultural onslaught was to strengthen youth from within, not by the use of imposed laws and restrictions.
Such tones have sparked (probably unjustifiable) hopes among many voters that Khatemi will legalise satellite television. Skilful spin-doctoring or not, it is clear that Khatemi has won the all-important vote banks of the youth, women and intellectuals. In Iran, teenagers from the age of 15 are able to vote.
Nouri, in contrast, has other just as powerful cards to play. Two weeks ago, as the campaign got under way, Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, told a workers' rally that the voters should vote for the most anti-US candidate and the one considered by the clergy as the most experienced and capable.
With his former experience as interior minister and current position as parliamentary speaker, the Leader's statement has been widely interpreted as tilting in the direction of Nateq Nouri, a tilt which Nouri has made much use of in his campaign. It has also earned Nouri the mantle of the candidate of the clerical establishment. Women voters already fear that a resumption of regular crack-downs on "hijab" or Islamic cover for females.