In three subsequent elections – the March 1999 village and city council elections, the February 2000 parliamentary elections and the 2001 presidential elections where Khatami was once again a candidate – respectively 64 per cent, 69 per cent and 66 per cent of Iran’s voters went to the polling booths and each time overwhelmingly cast their votes for the reformist candidates. Pessimists refer to the intimidation and imprisonment of prominent activists, deputies, editors and publishers. A society where the genie of dissent has been let out of the bottle cannot remain silent in perpetuity and argue that the demography of a young, urban, educated and politically aware population favors the reform movement. The deep-rooted demands for reform on the part of Iran’s young, educated and urban polity indicate that a genuine reformist social movement is quite capable of cutting its umbilical cord to President Mohammad Khatami, should he fail to keep up with the pace and the turns in the road ahead.