Revolutionary values alive at Iran cemetery

By Fredrik Dahl

BEHESHT-E ZAHRA CEMETERY, Tehran (Reuters) - Loyalty to Iran's Islamic revolution runs deep among mourners at the Behesht-e Zahra cemetery, where thousands of young men who died as soldiers defending the Shi'ite Muslim state are buried.

Many of the pious bereaved at the necropolis say they back hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and defend him against criticism over his handling of the economy ahead of Friday's parliamentary election which may also gauge his own popularity.

Himself a veteran of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War, in which 1 million people were killed, Ahmadinejad won the presidency almost three years ago vowing to revive the values of the 1979 revolution in whose name the conflict was fought.

"He is doing what the martyrs would have wanted him to do," said Ali Mokhtari, a bearded 29-year-old who works as a photographer at the cemetery on the outskirts of the capital.

"I'm proud of him," he said about the president's defiance of United Nations demands to halt nuclear work the West fears is aimed at making bombs, a charge Iran denies.

Such comments show Ahmadinejad's speeches denouncing the West, his policies to fight poverty and a crackdown on women flouting Islamic dress codes resonate with socially conservative and less well-off voters.

Ahmadinejad pledged after his 2005 election victory to share out Iran's oil wealth more fairly, but critics say profligate spending of petrodollars has stoked inflation into double-digits to the detriment of the poor he promised to help.

Expected to run again for president in 2009, the outcome of the vote to the 290-seat legislature may help measure his chances for another four-year term, although a vetting process has eliminated many of his main critics from the race.