After a series of bruising electoral defeats, Iranian conservatives campaigning in this week's presidential poll have belatedly embraced social media -- a space long dominated by their reformist rivals.
Across Iran's political spectrum, posting on social media has increasingly replaced street campaigning as the crucial way to rally supporters and attack opponents -- even if some of the most popular sites such as Twitter remain officially banned.
Hardline Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has used Twitter and messaging app Telegram, which has 25 million users in Iran, to release documents accusing his rivals of corruption.
When moderate President Hassan Rouhani, who is seeking re-election, visited the site of a mining disaster last week, conservatives posted a video of his car being attacked by protesters which quickly went viral.
Another conservative candidate, cleric Ebrahim Raisi, has live-streamed his rallies on Instagram and given unprecedented online question-and-answer sessions.
It marks a significant shift in a country where conservatives have tended to respect bans on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube -- leaving reformists a relatively free run on social media.
The bans date back to the 2009 election when Twitter and Facebook were widely used to rally support for reformists and then to organise mass protests when they claimed the result was rigged in favour of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
"The reformist camp always had the upper hand on social media" during 2009 and 2013 elections, journalist Sadra Mohaghegh told AFP.
Conservatives finally came round after a massive defeat in urban areas at last year's parliamentary elections, in which reformists scored a clean sweep of Tehran's 30 seats.
"Until then the conservatives had not realised the power of social media, but after that they realised they had to join the game," said Mohaghegh, who writes for reformist daily Shargh.
- Online army -
Reformists have continued to score hits on social media.
When hardliner Ghalibaf claimed he supported female empowerment in the workplace, critics published documents showing he had called for gender-segregated offices at Tehran municipal offices.
But Iran's hardliners have some powerful assistance.
Some 18,000 "volunteers" regularly scour the internet for anything deemed subversive, a top judiciary official said in February.
The arrests in March of 12 heads of popular reformist channels on Telegram sent a chill through the online community.
More:
https://www.afp.com/en/news/23/iran-hardliners-turn-reformist-dominated-social-media
