IRANIAN election results yesterday showed conservatives on course to keep their grip on parliament, but some were expected to join reformists in flaying President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's handling of the economy.
Conservatives took 120 seats in the 290-member assembly against 46 for reformists, according to partial unofficial results. The interior ministry, which supervised Friday's election, has said it might take another day or two to announce a fina
l tally.
Many reformists, trying to capitalise on public discontent over inflation, were disqualified from standing, but they expect Ahmadinejad to undergo sharper scrutiny, even in a parliament dominated by their conservative rivals.
"The president will face more challenges with the next parliament than he did with the current one," said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a close ally of reformist former president Mohammad Khatami.
Abdollah Nasseri, spokesman for the reformist coalition, said it had won 34 seats outright in results that excluded Tehran. Reformists, not all of them members of the coalition, were assured of another 15 seats in run-off votes, he said. "We gained victory in an unequal election," Nasseri said, adding that 70% of seats had been "predetermined" for conservatives.
Interior minister Mostafa Pourmohammadi said more than 71% of seats counted had gone to "principlists" – a term conservatives use to describe their loyalty to the ideals of the Islamic Republic. Reformists had taken about 29%. Pourmohammadi did not say how many seats had been decided.
The United Front, the larger and more pro-government of the two main conservative candidate lists, confusingly includes critics as well as backers of Ahmadinejad.
Reformists and some conservatives have accused Ahmadinejad of fuelling inflation, now at 19%, by lavishly spending Iran's windfall oil revenues on subsidies, loans and handouts.
Pro-reform politicians have also rebuked Ahmadinejad for vitriolic speeches that have kept Iran on a collision course with the United Nations over Tehran's disputed nuclear plans. Some conservatives, such as former nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, who won a seat in Qom, a centre of Shi'ite learning south of Tehran, have also queried the president's style.
However, Ahmadinejad has won public backing from Iran's top authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has explicitly endorsed his handling of the nuclear row.
The interior minister put turnout at roughly 60% of the Islamic Republic's 44 million eligible voters. The United States, Iran's harshest western critic, said the vetting process for candidates meant the outcome of voting in the world's fourth largest oil-producing country was "cooked".
The full article contains 417 words and appears in Scotland On Sunday newspaper.
