Ahmadinejad Buying Votes?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been accused of acting like a Democrat.

In Wisconsin, Democrats have attempted and succeeded at buying votes by offering cigarettes and hot dogs and Kringles.

Ahmadinejad is taking a cue from them.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Opponents of Iran's hard-line president have accused him of trying to buy votes before the June presidential election by handing out checks and free vegetables to the poor.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government has defended the payments, saying the checks for 500,000 and 1 million rials—about $50 and $100—have nothing to do with the election.

It has been distributing the money to poor families—most of them in rural areas and small towns—since last year, and in recent weeks it broadened the distribution to include students and teachers. The government also announced that on May 10 it began making $80 payments to 5.5 million people in rural areas throughout Iran.

Ahmadinejad's critics have seized on the payments as another opening to exploit one of his biggest vulnerabilities heading into the June 12 vote—discontent over his handling of the faltering economy. They accuse him of using the cash to win votes from people hit hard by rising inflation and unemployment.

"Attempting to win people's vote through dispensing public assets is a dangerous phenomenon employed for the first time (by Ahmadinejad's government)," said a statement Tuesday by a reformist party called the Islamic Revolution Mujahedeen Organization.

...In recent weeks, the government has also distributed free potatoes in small towns.

Students at a campaign event for Mousavi in the central town of Yazd on Monday chanted, "We don't want a potato government" and "Death to potatoes," a play on the "Death to America" slogan common at rallies by hard-liners.

The government said the potatoes had nothing to do with election, saying it was a choice between distributing them or letting them rot.

"Death to potatoes"?

That's pretty rough.

Is Ahmadinejad trying to buy votes by handing out checks and potatoes?

I don't know.

It's not as clear-cut as the cases of voter fraud in Wisconsin, like when Constance Milstein, New York Park Avenue Dem, showed up in Milwaukee at a homeless shelter to hand out cigarettes in exchange for votes.

But it does seem like Ahmadinejad is trying to win support and secure votes by gift-giving.

I wonder if Ahmdinejad has thought of employing this Dem tactic to suppress the vote: Slashing the tires of vans rented by his opponent to take voters to the polls.

If Ahmadinejad really wants to assure victory, he needs an organization like ACORN behind him.