By Najmeh Bozorgmehr

When polls open in Iran on Friday, Sara will be casting a protest vote. The 24-year-old computer student from Mashhad, the north-eastern city of 2.8 million people, says she fears for her future as economic frustrations mount, threatening her family’s middle-class status. She wants Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the fundamentalist president, out of office, and Mir Hossein Moussavi, the more moderate former prime minister, in control. “I’m going to vote for Moussavi to prevent Ahmadinejad from becoming president again,” she says, clad in jeans and a long black shirt. “When a kilo of apricots reaches about 4,000 tomans ($4), it means I cannot eat it any more, just as the poor cannot.”

Reformists backing Moussavi are tapping into the discontent of the educated middle class to create a popular wave that could unseat Ahmadinejad. Though their main candidate, the 68-year-old Moussavi, is a quiet, self-effacing intellectual — his background is in architecture and painting — the swell of disenchantment with the president is inspiring voters to back a more reliable alternative.

In an election that once looked as if it would hand Ahmadinejad a victory in the first round, a sudden enthusiasm has been unleashed by the reformists, leading many analysts to predict that a second round is likely. In Tehran, young people cruise the streets in their cars in the evenings and urge people to vote for Moussavi. Wrapped with green scarves and flags — his campaign colour — they heap ridicule on his rival, Ahmadinejad, criticising his looks, and his humble style of dress, and they dance in the streets in defiance of social bans.

Respected for his handling of the economy in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s, Moussavi is promising Iranians more freedom and more rational economic management. Importantly, he is also backed by Mohammad Khatami, the former reformist president who can still draw massive crowds. Two other candidates are running — Mehdi Karroubi, a former parliament speaker and reformist politician, and Mohsen Rezaei, a conservative former head of the elite Revolutionary Guard.

“Ahmadinejad has angered the middle class by humiliating Iran in the world, blatantly lying about his economic achievements and worrying people about the possibility of becoming poorer,” says Saeed Leylaz, a political analyst. “The middle class has a big and simple target now: Ahmadinejad must go.”

The president has every intention of staying, however. Over the past week, he has gone on the offensive, resorting to personal attacks against Moussavi, and attempting to tarnish his image by linking him to unpopular figures in the regime. Although many analysts believe poverty has increased since Ahmadinejad took over in 2005, the president’s programme of cash handouts and cheap banking loans and his attention to rural areas have maintained his popularity among the disadvantaged. Visiting Mashhad last week, Ahmadinejad was greeted by frenzied crowds of religious radicals and underprivileged families, many of whom rushed behind his motorcade hoping to share their economic complaints.

Ali, a 52-year-old driver, says most people in his nearby village will vote for Ahmadinejad again on Friday, having just received dividends from the shares in state enterprises the government had previously distributed to the poor. Vahid Moussavian, a member of Ahmadinejad’s election campaign, says the key to the president’s appeal is not that he is seen as a “saviour” of the poor, but that he cares about “social justice”.

As the campaign enters its final days — if no candidate wins 50 per cent of the vote, a second round will be held a week from Friday — the challenge for Moussavi is that rural Iranians turn up to vote in much higher numbers than the urban middle class. And given that millions of votes from radical organisations are also likely to go for the president, the reformists need a high turnout.

The Moussavi camp, however, is growing more confident by the day. Iranian analysts, meanwhile, say that despite the apparent splits in society, the election should not be seen purely as a class struggle. Though Moussavi has been mobilising the middle class, he has also styled himself as a social democrat. Unions have joined industrialists, businessmen, students, university dons and even some of the conservative clergy in backing his candidacy.

“Those segments of the poor who have more social awareness, like workers, might benefit from the cash handouts [of the Ahmadinejad government] but are going to vote for Moussavi, as they realise all in all they have become poorer than four years ago,” says one top businessman in Mashhad.