Iranians on The Elect

The BBC ran an interesting story about Iranian reaction to The Elect's victory. One blogger, cartoonist and blogger Nikahang Kosar who now lives in Canada, likened Obama to the reformist Mohammad Khatami in Iran. Obama's promise of 'change' reminds many Iranians of their own optimism when they elected the reformist Mohammad Khatami as president in 1997. This reflects the disillusionment Khatami's supporters felt when his attempts at reform were blocked by Iran's Islamic hardliners.

Likewise, Tehran journalist Ehsan Taqaddosi echoes this feeling, writing on demokracy.blogfa.com states: "Khatami was our Obama."

And, a third Iranian, Ehsan Taqaddosi, fears Obama cannot deliver what he promises.

Like Obama, Khatami was a pleasant talker and he introduced concepts such as the rule of the people and democracy into our political literature. But what happened in practice?

Nothing changed... Everyone says that Obama will be the same as his predecessors and in practice he may only be able to create a short, sharp shock.

Khatami also created a short, sharp shock and at the end of his tenure, we didn't witness any of the enthusiasm and determination which existed during the initial years of his government's rule.

The Iranian comments were originally in Farsi and translated by BBC Monitoring.