TEHRAN - Conservatives and allies of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, stood to keep their hold on parliament as Iranians voted Friday in elections in which reformists were barred from running.
As polls opened, state radio urged Iranians to give a strong turnout to show the West that they were unified. "Iranians will go to ballots to send a message to those who are not able to see unity of Iranians behind [the country's] achievements," it said.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei cast his vote at a religious center next to his residence in Iran, tucking a folded paper into a transparent plastic box.
Advertisement
Khamenei has backed conservatives in the race, saying earlier this week that Iranians should bring to parliament anti-U.S. candidates whose loyalties are to Islam and justice.
Some 4,500 candidates nationwide are running for parliament's 290 seats in Friday's vote. But reformists say they don't have candidates in around 200 of the races after Iran's hard-line clerical leadership eliminated most of their top candidates.
The Guardian Council - an unelected body of clerics and jurists - disqualified around 1,700 candidates, mostly reformists, on the grounds they were insufficiently loyal to Islam or Iran's 1979 revolution. The reformist candidates who remain are mostly little-known to the public.
The disqualifications have divided reform supporters. Some have decided to boycott the vote.
"We can't bring deep democratic changes within the ruling establishment through the ballot box," said Hadi Rezaei, a 29-year-old computer technician in Tehran. "Once, I used to vote for reformers but it didn't work. The Guardian Council has already decided the elections."
But reform leaders are pressing their backers to go to the polls, hoping that with a large turnout they can at least build a strong minority in parliament, rather than the handful of seats they now have.
"It is not a fair or free election but I will still vote," said Ahmad Moshkelati, who writes for the pro-reform newspaper Mardomsalari or Democracy.
Boycotting the vote only strengthens hard-liners.
Ahmadinejad's allies also face a challenge from conservatives who have grown disillusioned with the fiery president since he took office in 2005.
The president's popularity has been hurt by the country's ailing economy, hit by spiraling inflation, high unemployment and fuel shortages. Some former conservative allies accuse Ahmadinejad of worsening the problem with his policies. They also accuse him of limiting decision-making to a limited clique of hard-liners, without taking into account advice of more moderate conservatives.
A strong showing by the Inclusive Coalition of Principlists - a slate of
candidates that includes critics of the president - would be a sign of
Ahmadinejad's waning support even among backers of Iran's Islamic republic.
But moderate conservatives appear not to have coalesced into a strong force in the campaign. But top figures considered moderate conservatives, such as former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and former nuclear negotiator Hasan Rowhani have not come out to campaign for the list.
An estimated 44 million Iranians of over 18 years of age are eligible to vote.
Turnout is a key issue. In 2004 elections, which were swept by hard-liners after most reform candidates were barred from the race, turnout was around 51 percent.
In previous votes won by reformists, it was closer to 80 percent. Reformists say they have the support of a silent majority that, if it votes, swings elections to them.
Ahmadinejad's allies have mostly joined a candidates' slate known as the
United Front of Principlists, a name that refers to their adherence to the principles of the Islamic revolution.
Ali Farahani - a young cleric in the holy city of Qom, the heartland of Iran's religious establishment - said Ahmadinejad's government is moving ahead.
"Some may criticize that it hasn't reached the goal, but it is in motion, and that is good. The motion should not be stopped. Conservatives are right, society is in a process of change," said the 24-year-old, who teaches at one of Qom's many Islamic seminaries. "The 1979
Islamic revolution's principles are Islam's principles - justice, protection of human dignity," he said.
Haaretz.com, the online edition of Haaretz Newspaper in Israel, offers real-time breaking news, opinions and analysis from Israel and the Middle East. Haaretz.com provides extensive and in-depth coverage of Israel, the Jewish World and the Middle East, including defense, diplomacy, the Arab-Israeli conflict, the peace process, Israeli politics, Jerusalem affairs, international relations, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli business world and Jewish life in Israel and the Diaspora.
