ABSTRACT
The victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the hardliner political candidate in Iran’s 2005 presidential election, has marked a major development in the consolidation of the Islamic Republic. The victory highlights a new populist and nationalist paroxysm, whereby combined elements of social conservatism, in terms of puritanical shariaism, millenarianism, and populist egalitarianism, have enabled the Islamist state to mobilize conservative clerics and hardliner echelons of the regime to tighten their hold on power.
