Iran Hard-Liners Win More Seats With Fewer Voters

TEHRAN —  Conservatives and reformists both claimed a moral victory in Iranian election results Saturday although the conservatives took most parliamentary seats, as had been expected.

The elections Friday were boycotted by leading reformist parties protesting the exclusion of many of their candidates. The Islamic hard-liners, who had staged a last-minute media blitz urging a large turnout, said they were pleased with the voting figures -- estimated at 45% to 50% by Interior Ministry officials and 60% by the state media.

Reformists countered that the turnout amounted to a sharp rebuff for the conservatives forces. In the last parliamentary vote in 2000, an estimated 67% of Iranians went to the polls.

Reuters cited Interior Ministry numbers as indicating that of 192 provincial seats, 133 went to conservatives, 37 to reformists and 22 to independents and others. Results for large cities were not yet available, nor were the final turnout figures.

The conservatives’ victory was a foregone conclusion after the hard-line Guardian Council disqualified more than 2,400 candidates -- including 80 incumbent reformist lawmakers -- prompting the main reformist parties to boycott the balloting.

Reformists said Saturday that the turnout represented a protest.

“What happened was exactly the opposite of what [the conservatives] wanted,” said Ali Shakurirad, a leading figure in the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the main reformist party to boycott the vote. Mostafa Tajzadeh, another Participation Front leader, said the results indicated that less than 10% of eligible voters had supported the conservatives in Tehran.

“These elections were not free and were not fair,” Tajzadeh said at a news conference. “For the first time since the revolution, we knew exactly what the result would be,” he said, referring to the 1979 ouster of the shah.

But Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appeared on television and dismissed critics of the elections, describing the polls as “completely credible.”

“Those who lost the elections were America, Zionism and the enemies of the Iranian nation,” he said. “Interventionist imperialists were daydreaming, and they sought to portray the Islamic Republic as being deprived of its popular base.

“The judgment of American imperialists who have been talking nonsense about these elections is absolutely worthless,” he added.

In a statement, the Guardian Council said the elections had transformed parliament into a powerful and efficient body that “would be guided by spirituality.”

Neither side acknowledged that some voters stayed away because of disillusionment and alienation after years of power struggles between the two sides that have produced few popular changes.

Isa Saharkhiz, editor of the reformist monthly magazine Aftab, said that the conservatives launched “psychological warfare” to get voters to the ballot booth and that many took part because of rumors that their careers could suffer if they did not have a stamp on their ID card showing that they had voted.

As the election approached, conservatives launched a crackdown against reformists and media outlets. Fifteen students were summoned last week to appear in court. An office of the Participation Front was closed and its Internet site blocked.

Two well-known reformist newspapers were shuttered and editors of other journals were warned not to take a strong opposition line, Saharkhiz said.

“We think after the elections there will be more repressions against the reformers, especially the outspoken ones,” Tajzadeh said. “We are ready for it.”

But moderate conservatives insisted that there wouldn’t be any immediate crackdown on liberties.

Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel, a leader for the main conservative coalition in the elections, the Developers of Islamic Iran, said the priority should be to improve Iran’s economy.

“We will do everything for people’s rights to be respected, within the framework of our beliefs and Islamic values,” he said.

Saharkhiz said the reformists had exhausted any chance of achieving change through the parliament after laws they proposed were blocked.

After the setback in Friday’s elections, Iran’s reformists were soul-searching and rethinking their strategy.

Student organizers, one of the main wings of protest in Iran, talked Saturday about going back to basics, starting from scratch to organize nongovernmental organizations and educate Iranians about their rights.

“The reform movement has reached a dead end within the regime itself,” said student leader Sadjad Ghoroghi, 23, adding that it would take time to build civil organizations to oppose the regime.

“Young people show their opposition in the way they dress and act,” he said.

“We think that we will get stronger. The student movement is not a party or a newspaper. You can’t close it down or ban it.”