Arash Aramesh

Mir Hossein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, leaders of the opposition Green Movement, are making new efforts to reach out to Iranian labors and teachers. May 1 and May 2 are Labor Day and Teacher’s Day in Iran respectively.

In a statement praising the importance of Labor Day and Teacher’s Day, Moussavi complained that domestic markets were handed over to forefingers and foreign goods have replaced Iranian manufactured products.

In the most politically significant part of the statement, Moussavi tried to link the issues of the labor movement in Iran to those of the Green Movement and the broader society as a whole. According to Kaleme, Moussavi’s official website, the former presidential candidate said, “We are witnessing [the government] shutting people’s mouths, shutting down newspapers, filling up prisons, and restricting unions and political syndicates which will impact the fate of teachers and labors.”

Moussavi went on by saying that the teachers and labors are after social justice and equality. He accused the current government of failing to deliver on both fronts. Equality and social justice were President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s main campaign slogans, especially in the 2005 presidential race when he defeat Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is accused of being involved in corruption in Iranian politics. Ahmadinejad’s critics believe that not only did Ahmadinejad fail to take adequate steps to address those issues, but his government also became arguably the most corrupt government in past 31 years.

Moussavi then criticized Ahmadinejad’s foreign policy by saying that “it is in the best interest of labors and teachers in Iran to have a moderate foreign policy,” implying that Ahmadinejad’s hawkish and at times miscalculated foreign policy has had a negative impact on the Iranian economy.

Taking shots at the Supreme Leader and the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, Moussavi said, “The country’s security cannot be guaranteed by guns and military forces,” hinting at Ayatollah Khamenei, the commander in chief of Iran’s Armed Forces, and the leadership of the IRGC that their efforts have only made things worse for the Islamic Republic and have depleted it of popular legitimacy.

Since coming to power in 2005, Ahmadinejad has tried to portray himself as the representative of the lower classes, the downtrodden, the farmers and villagers, and the labor in Iran. His popularity among some of the most economically deprived peoples of Iran was a sign that his populist slogans were making an impact in Iran’s most impoverished regions.

In order to prevent Moussavi from tapping into this large and impoverished electoral base, Ahmadinejad and his supporters tried to paint the Green Movement as the movement of rich, privileged, Western minded residents of North Tehran. The truth is that Moussavi, who as prime minister had a great relationship with the underprivileged class in Iran, is still quiet popular among the poor and the working classes.

Moussavi and the Green Movement are committed to having a popular and strong movement in Iran. This must include not only the educated elites in Iran’s top universities, but also the men and women who drive city buses, work in factories, and operate the refineries in Iran’s oil rich provinces.