It has been a tumultuous campaign. Iranians vote on Friday in the first round of elections that will decide the fate of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the shrewd fundamentalist and mercurial president of the Islamic Republic. It has been a highly competitive contest. We shall now see if it is democratic.

The president’s main challenger, Mir-Hossein Moussavi, a painter and architect who was prime minister in 1981-89 during the long war with Iraq, has mounted an unexpectedly menacing insurgent campaign that has galvanised reformists out of years of despondency.