IRAN: Paying to play in Tehran?

Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, is handing out wads of cash, about $2 million, to various religious associations in what some see as a preparation for a 2009 presidential run.

Qalibaf, a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, is giving the money for festivities marking the holy month of Muharram, which is important to Iran's 95% Shiite Muslim majority. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who ascended to the presidency from the Tehran mayor's post in 2005, made a similar move in the run-up to his election.

Qalibaf insists that he is a "modernizer" and not a conservative. He says he has not made up his mind whether to run for the presidency. But some observers insist that he has already started his candidacy.

Government largess has played an important role in cementing the support of pious groups for various conservative political candidates. During the 1989-97 presidency of Hashemi Rafsanjani, then-Tehran Mayor Gholamhossein Karbaschi launched an unprecedented campaign of contributions to mosques and Shiite religious associations.

The cash was meant in part to soothe the anger of hard-liners opposed to new cultural centers built to appeal to more secular-minded youth and the relaxation of strict codes of dress and behavior imposed in the years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

When Ahmadinejad became the mayor of Tehran, government contributions to the Shiite associations increased dramatically, helping garner support for his presidential run.

Qalibaf, a former police chief, ran against Ahmadinejad in 2005 but lost in the first round of voting.

— Ramin Mostaghim in Tehran

Photo: Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf. Credit: Kamran Jebreli /Associated Press