rights of foreign investors, but rarely those of independent newspapers or student demonstrators, given to vacuous dialogues with the Pope on spiritual values, but incapable of firm protection of civil rights, Khatami manoeuvred ineffectually between contradictory pressures until he had exhausted his moral credit. Ahmadinejad's base in the popular classes embeds a greater social sensibility in the new presidency, but there is no guarantee the practical outcomes will be better. The millions of young, working-class jobless, crammed into overcrowded living conditions, are in desperate need of a coherent policy of national development. But Islamic voluntarism is not a stable alternative to creeping neoliberalism, and the temptation to ratchet up cultural repression to compensate for economic frustration is usually irresistible. In Iran's sprawling, opaque political system, the presidency is surrounded with competing centres of power, nearly all of them more conservative than the incumbent. The Supreme Leader Khamenei does not want to be upstaged by a young firebrand. The mullah -- bazaari nexus behind Rafsanjani has already thwarted Ahmadinejad's efforts to clean up the Oil Ministry, and remains entrenched in the Expediency Council. The pro-Western middle class that identified with Khatami is licking its wounds, and looking for a comeback. All are ready to pounce on any inexperience or misstep, of which there will be not a few. [15] The social backdrop to such disputes remains tense enough in its own right. The skewed development model inherited from the Shah, battered by nearly a decade of war, then subjected to Rafsanjani's