TEHRAN — Hundreds of young women in head scarves scream, stomp their feet and wave green flags and banners inside the Bahman Cultural Center, often a venue for pop bands performing in Tehran.
But it's not a rock star they await -- it's an aging politician and his wife, who has electrified female voters with her impressive resume and seemingly modern relationship with her husband.
As diminutive former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, walk into the stadium from a side entrance, the crowd's roar peaks. She almost leads her frail husband, who appears slightly taken aback by the fervor he has unleashed as the reformist front-runner in the battle to unseat incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Friday's presidential election.
"Rahnavard, Rahnavard, equality of woman and man!" they chant in a Persian rhyme that rolls easily off the lips.
"Mousavi is good with his wife and that's important to me," says Mariam Fathali, a 22-year-old aspiring judo athlete among the crowd. "I've never seen a politician who holds his wife's hand in public. And he holds it with love and respect, not with possessiveness."
A scholar, artist and former university chancellor, the 62-year-old Rahnavard has emerged as a highly visible political figure in one of the most novel developments in the race pitting the conservative Ahmadinejad against three challengers for Iran's most visible if not most powerful post.
The wives of leaders elsewhere in the Middle East, such as Egypt, Jordan and Syria, play large public roles in promoting charity and the arts. But except for occasional trips abroad, Iranian first ladies have been largely invisible and completely silent.
But Rahnavard has been highly visible, especially after Ahmadinejad dragged her into the middle of the campaign by holding up what appeared to be an intelligence file about her during a debate with Mousavi and accusing her of skirting government rules in obtaining her degrees.
Rahnavard appeared to relish publicly defending herself, demanding that the president apologize.
"Either [Ahmadinejad] cannot tolerate highly educated women or he's discouraging women from playing an active role in society," she told reporters.
Last month in the newspaper Etemad, Behrouz Samadbeigi wrote: "In the past, none of the wives of the presidential candidates had taken part in the election campaigns of their husbands. It sends out the message that this candidate is a multifaceted human being and tries to plan his professional and private relations in a normal way, without going to excesses."
