THE ultra-conservative mayor of Tehran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, surprised much of Iran and most of the world yesterday by winning the presidency on a platform of promises reminiscent of the early days of the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Ahmadinejad, 49 — who has threatened to “cut off the hands of the mafia” and described Iran’s access to nuclear power as its “inalienable right” — won an unexpected landslide victory over Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the 70-year-old former president and favourite.

The populist mayor, who cast himself as the Robin Hood of Iran’s devout and impoverished masses, secured 61.7% of the vote to Rafsanjani’s 35.9% in Friday’s second round run-off. Turnout was about 60%.

Rafsanjani, the so-called “pragmatic” if machiavellian cleric, had narrowly led the list of seven candidates in the first round held a week earlier, and had been widely expected to pick up many more votes from liberal-minded voters anxious to prevent a victory by his hardline rival.

In his first statement as president-elect, in a tape sent to Iran state radio, Ahmadinejad declared: “I seek to create a modern, advanced, powerful and Islamic model for the world. Let us convert competition to friendship, we are all a nation and a big family.”

His words reminded observers of similar slogans chanted in the early days of Ayatollah Khomeini, who led the revolution that ousted the Shah a quarter of a century ago.

World reaction to Ahmadinejad’s victory was mixed. Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, urged him to address international concerns over Iran’s nuclear programme.

In Washington, the State Department indicated that the result would not change America’s view of Iran as “out of step with the rest of the region in the currents of freedom and liberty that have been so apparent in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon”.

Russia, which has angered Washington over its close nuclear ties with Iran, congratulated Ahmadinejad, however, and pledged to continue its co-operation.

Ahmadinejad, who has promised to give the poor a greater slice of the Islamic republic’s abundant oil wealth, swept to victory after a campaign focused largely on the hardships of the majority of the country’s 68m people.

For the rest of the world, probably the most worrying aspect of Iran’s step into the political unknown will be what his victory means for its nuclear policy.

A top Iranian nuclear scientist told The Sunday Times last week that the country would be “a very few years” away from enriching its own uranium for fuel if it lifted its current suspension of enrichment activity. It would then be only a step, using the same process, to create weapons-grade fuel for an atomic bomb.

Ahmadinejad has described nuclear energy as “the scientific achievement of the Iranian nation”, declaring: “No one can deprive the Iranian nation of this right.”

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