Iran conservatives set to tighten grip on power

IRAN'S Islamic conservatives were poised to tighten their grip on power by winning controversial parliamentary polls and sweeping out a frustrated and largely disqualified reformist majority.

With most reformist candidates barred from standing and public indifference widespread, the only element of suspense was how many of Iran's 46.3 million eligible voters would turn out.

The conservatives were expected to reverse the crushing reformist majority and add parliament to the political and security institutions they already control in the 25-year-old Islamic republic.

On the eve of the vote, the reformist camp also came under renewed pressure with the hardline judiciary shutting down two newspapers that published a scathing protest letter from reformist MPs to the country's supreme leader.

The office of Tehran's hardline public prosecutor closed and sealed off the premises of pro-reform dailies Shargh and Yas-e No. They were the only two newspapers who ignored an official ban and carried a letter from incumbent reformist deputies that questioned Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's role in the mass disqualifications.

Some 70 reformists who had resigned from parliament in protest warned of a "widening gap between the regime and the people" and asked if Khamenei had allowed the disqualifications of 2,300 candidates, all but killing off their election chances.

Criticising the supreme leader is a serious criminal offence in Iran. An official from the prosecutions office, Seyed Hossien Hossinian, was quoted as saying the Yas-e No newspaper had "insulted the supreme leader" and had "published propaganda against the Islamic republic".

Campaigning for seats in the Majlis officially ended across Iran overnight on Wednesday, bringing to a close an event that has been marked by widespread voter apathy.

Out of the 5,625 candidates who were given the green light to stand, 888 have pulled out. Reformists are only campaigning for 200 of the 290 seats up for grabs, and the main reform parties are boycotting.

Text messages urging people not to vote were circulating over the mobile phone network for the past few days. One message said "the ballot box will be the coffin of democracy".

Even before the disqualifications, many Iranians had been highly critical of the reformists and their President Mohammad Khatami's failure to deliver promises of greater democracy in the face of constant obstruction by conservatives.

But top figures in the regime, including Khamenei and former president Akbar Hasemi Rafsanjani, have been calling for a large turnout in messages repeated several times a day on conservative-run state radio and television.

The first results are expected tomorrow, with a definitive tally coming several days later.

The main conservative bloc expected to do well is the Coalition of Builders of Islamic Iran, a grouping that has been keen to present itself as a pragmatic force, and not the puritanical "Taliban" reformists are warning of.