"Hello, Iran, with your face covered in dust,” greeted presidential candidate Hassan Rouhani in a half-hour documentary aired to millions of Iranians on state TV Tuesday night [June 4]. “We are in a cultural, economic and political winter and the weather is unfairly cold,” he said, quoting Persian poet Mehdi Akhavan-Sales.
In the 30 minutes of airtime provided to each of the eight approved candidates for the June 14 election, the little-known Rouhani put up a robust performance, criticizing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration and campaigning on broad, but as yet ill-defined, reforms for the country. He pledged his presidency would “end isolation for the Iranian people.”