LEANING out of a battered Volkswagen Golf festooned with the Iranian flag and posters of Mostafa Moin, the reformist presidential candidate, Siamack hands out CDs and leaflets as Saira throws red roses on passing cars.

Until two days ago, Siamack and Saira, two university students, planned to boycott the election. Now they are on the streets campaigning for Mr Moin. “The boycott movement is dead. What’s the point? Polls say turnout will be near 50 per cent so we may as well make sure the conservatives don’t get in,” Siamack says.

As Iran votes today, this last-minute about-turn in public opinion has propelled Mr Moin — called the Doctor by his supporters — from near-obscurity to second favourite, between Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful former President, and Muhammad Qalibaf, a former hardline police chief. “The point isn’t whether the Doctor can give us more freedom,” Saira says. “We’re realistic and know the Supreme Leader (Grand Ayatollah Ali Khameni) will never let him. But the point is to have someone who is working against the system.” Every day the election has neared, Mr Moin has become more courageous in his criticism of the regime, converting those who had vowed that after eight years of empty promises of reform by Muhammad Khatami, considered a lame-duck president, they would not vote again.

In an unprecedented and daring act, Mr Moin has joined forces with the Freedom Movement, a banned liberal group whose members regularly flit in and out of prison. This shrewd manoeuvre has bought him a crucial late surge in support, and has had many analysts predicting that he will make it to a second round against Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani. “It is very strange that Moin has made an alliance with the Freedom Movement as until recently not even the reformists could accept them,” Said Leylaz, a veteran political analyst, said.

“It’s not that Iranians love the Freedom Movement but it is the only party in the country that operates within the country but works outside the regime, supporting a Western style of democracy,” he said.

However, it has not been an easy ride for the reformists in the run-up to elections described yesterday by President Bush as unfair. Mr Moin was at first disqualified but reinstated on the Supreme Leader’s recommendation.

On Tuesday night thousands of supporters filled the Tehran University sports stadium to hear him speak. The student-dominated crowd was hungry for defiance and the Doctor delivered, wheeling out an assortment of regime rebels. A string of political dissidents, spurned revolutionaries, journalists fresh from prison and disbarred MPs took the stand.

“We will not be crushed,” they said, speaking in terms of Us and Them to the thunderous roar of the supporters. And then it was Mr Moin’s turn. “All political prisoners must be freed,” he said, throwing in the words “democracy” and “human rights”. The crowd poured out on to the streets chanting slogans and poking fun at Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani. A group of angry Islamic militia heckled near by, cordoned off by police.

But it is hard to find any supporters of Mr Moin elsewhere in the country, where conservative candidates such as Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani and Mr Qalibaf appeal to entrenched Islamic social values. “Tehran is not a good indicator. Most of the country is very conservative and poor. Freeing political prisoners doesn’t mean much to a farmer and a conservative win won’t be a shock,” a political analyst in Tehran said.

On Wednesday night, the last day of campaigning, thousands of Iranians took to the streets in a final play-off between supporters. Mr Rafsanjani — called Hashemi by his fans — has attracted the glamorous rich kids of north Tehran. The campaign office on Fereshteh Street, the trendy hangout of the young and the beautiful, has been pumping out dance music and disco lights. Peugeots emblazoned with “Hashemi for Iran” stickers have become a fashion statement, especially when the “emi” can be ripped off, giving a different meaning altogether.

But for many politics was the last thing on their minds. Roxanna, 16, summed up the mood: “I’m having fun. I’m not voting. I just like the Hashemi stickers. They’re cool.”

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