Saturday, June 06, 2009

Karrubi Couldn't Deal with Ahmadienjad Either

I was expecting Karrubi to do better than Moussavi in his live televised debate against president Ahmadinejad this evening, but that was not the case. It seems so far, none of the candidates are a match for Ahmadienjad's pugilistic style of debating.

Karrubi tried to pin Ahmadinejad on his claims of a halo surrounding him at the UN but Ahmadinejad simply dismissed all this, saying it was all fabricated and not true. This is despite the film footage and witness statement by Ayatollah Amoli in the film footage. Instead Ahmadienjad came back with colourful chart after chart on statistics of how well his government has done . Karrubi tried to dismiss the figures but Ahmadinejad said these are the official figures extracted by the same institutions used by the previous governments. Karrubi did not have his own figures to counter argue.

Ahmadinejad had two further aces up his sleeve. Karrubi's acceptance of around $300000 from the imprisoned fraudster, Shahram Jazayeri and Obama's overtures to the Islamic Republic, which Ahmadienjad exploited as the reasons for his successful foreign policy. As in the debate with Moussavi, Ahmadienjad claimed US efforts of reapproachment with Iran was as a result of his successful foreign policy. "Before they had a policy of regime change, now they beg to sit with us and talk to us, it shows our foreign policy has been successful'' Ahmadinejad claimed confidently.

When Karrubi tried to accuse Ahmadienjad of embezzlement, Ahmadinejad asked him for evidence and Karrubi couldn't produce anything. Just like Moussavi, Karrubi seemed at times to have forgotten where he had filed his notes.

When Karrubi finally ran out of time, which his own pointless anecdotes and memoires were largely responsible for, Ahmadienjad had plenty of time to deliver his final right and left hook, questioning Karrubi's source of income, how he obtained such a big a house and how lame Karrubi's justification of accepting money from Jazayeri was, then he capitalized on his own claims of modest living and receiving a teacher's salary only.

The previous night to the debate, Karrubi's supporters had organised a demonstration at Vali Asr avenue. I have seen the film footage of this on Facebook but I haven't been able to embed it in my blog. The slogans were really radical. 'Free Choice of Dress is Iranian Woman's Right' - 'The Oil Money Has Been Lost, We have all been cheated' and 'Death to this Liar Government'. Its a shame Karrubi could not measure up to the enthusiasm of the people at Vali Asr demonstration.

However you judge the candidates in these series of debates, it is hard not to notice that the real winner of these debates are the people of Iran who are watching the mighty figures in the establishment being ripped apart by the candidates and especially by Ahmadienjad. Whether Ahmadinejad is confident that he has the firm backing of other powerful establishment figures or has inadvertently tipped his toes in dangerous waters and burned his bridges, remains to be seen.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

احمدی نژاد زبان مردم عامه مردم را بلد است ، مشاوران رسانه ای فوق العاده خوبی دارد که برای هر کاندیدایی که مقابل او قرار میگیرد یک تاکتیک دارد یک برنامه دارد

Anonymous said...

I was very disappointed by Karubi.
Ahmadi has learned a lot in these four years. He is a great populist and know how to say it in what tone. No candidate will have a change against him in a debate.

However its the Iranian people that would make use of this to come to the streets and make their will being heard.

We didnt have this atmosphere of debate open in the public since ages. This is very promising.

After seeing this, I think Mousavi will win...

H.

Nadir said...

When Karrubi accused Ahmadienjad of sitting under the banner of 'Arabian Gulf', Ahmadienjad replied that the writing said Arab Governments of the Gulf. Whichever it was, it did not say Persian Gulf. I expected Karrubi to be sharper than that

Naj said...

I fully agree!

but i also am afraid that none of these figures will be as effective as ahmadinejad is in foreign interviews and in standing up to the world ... i hate a lot of things about ahmadinejad, but who else has stood up to mike wallace to mightily, really?!

Azarmehr said...

Naj,

That's because they don't do their homework and ask the right questions.

Anonymous said...

I have seen students debating better than Karrubi. The problem is that all these candidates have a lot to hide so it comes down to making the right argument and Ahmadinejad seems to be the only half trained politician there!