TEHRAN, Iran – Middle-class Iranians are considering their future after the election of a president who has promised an affirmation of the values of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Among those already thinking of leaving the country are people who gave up comfortable lives in the West to reconnect with their homeland, or make money, or both.

In many cases they are the offspring of the educated, Western-leaning classes who were part of the exodus that followed the overthrow of the Shah and the return of Ayatollah Khomenei 26 years ago.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then a young revolutionary guard, was confirmed on Saturday as the easy winner of the run-off presidential poll against a cleric and former president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

In north Tehran, the most affluent part of the capital, the news was greeted badly. The wealthy fear that Mr. Ahmadinejad will reverse the cautious freedoms they have enjoyed over the past decade. They feel they may have been foolish to heed the call by the outgoing president, Mohammed Khatemi, for expatriates to come home and rebuild the country.

“I haven’t booked my ticket just yet,” said Amir, 26, who has dual nationality after living in London since he was six. “But I am definitely thinking of going back.”

He returned to Iran last year and found work with a Japanese-Iranian joint-venture tobacco company. “It’s always one step forward and 10 steps back in Iran.”

Some came to open the sorts of basic businesses, such as fast-food or coffee shops, that mushroomed as the economy was liberalized. There is worry that such establishments could be targets in an anti-Western drive.

“I would leave Iran if they interfered with my restaurant,” said Ali, 25, who grew up in London. His friend, Hamid, said: “Soon there will be no place for us to meet and chat. All we want to do is drink coffee.” They all asked for their surnames to be withheld.

Mr. Ahmadinejad’s win sent shockwaves through Iran’s commercial markets. The Tehran stock exchange took a sharp dive in its index price. Foreign investors, as well as Iranian industrialists, have put investments on hold until the president-elect implements his policies when he is inaugurated in August.

However, Mr. Ahmadinejad’s victory was in part a reaction to the Iran embodied by young bankers and businessmen.

A blacksmith’s son, the 48-year-old president-elect styled himself as the nation’s “street sweeper” and was seen by the less privileged as a campaigner against the failed promises of economic liberalization that have left unemployment as high as 30%.

His support also represented a rejection of corruption and clerical rule, however much he may have in common with the mullahs ideologically.