By Parisa Hafezi
TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iranians vote on Friday in the 10th presidential election since the 1979 Islamic revolution which toppled the U.S.-backed Shah.
Three decades after the revolution, Reuters invited some older Iranians who witnessed the Shah's overthrow to look back at the changes they have lived through.
Here are some of their views:
LIVING COSTS
"Before the revolution, most Iranians could afford to buy a flat, but now even rents are not affordable for people like me," said Mahmoud Sardari, a retired government employee who earns $400 a month.
"I had a 150 square meter apartment then and I could afford to travel abroad with my two daughters and my wife. But now with this high inflation I feel poorer every passing day."
Sardari, 62, has little patience for hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's economic populism, but said reformers offer little alternative since all candidates promise to redistribute oil wealth, rather than restructure the economy.
With official inflation at 15 percent "every month my purchasing power drops and I am preoccupied with daily livelihood," he said.
Under the Shah, the middle class constituted a majority of Iran's population, said Sardari. "But now Iranians are mainly lower income people."
Architect Alireza Naghshband, 67, disagrees.
"Since 1979, we weathered international sanctions, diplomatic isolation, and the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s," he said. "Still, people like me have much better living standards than before the revolution.
"Under the Shah most Iranians were poor except those linked to the royal family. But since 1979 Iran has become the land of opportunities for all Iranians."
TRAVEL AND RESPECT
Retired teacher Mahin Hamedani, 72, has not seen her U.S.-based children and grandchildren since 2004. "I have tried unsuccessfully to get a U.S. visa. I miss my children and grandchildren so much," she said.
"Before the revolution, Iranians could get a (U.S.) visa from the American embassy in Tehran easily." Continued...
Source: Reuters
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