Iran: Khatami crushes election opponents

President Mohammad Khatami of Iran has crushed opponents in an election landslide that showed huge support for his drive to bring more freedom to the Islamic regime, early results indicated today.

Now, the real test - following through on pledges for reform despite resistance from powerful conservative forces who hemmed him in during his first term - begins for Khatami.

Final results from yesterday’s voting in at least six areas around the country showed Khatami receiving between 75 and 95% of the vote, according to the Government-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

The results came from towns and cities in south eastern and north eastern Iran.

The agency also said Khatami received between 88 and 93% of the vote from Iranians voting abroad.

Khatami faced nine challengers who ranged from hardliners to those seeking to fight corruption and improve the economy.

Ahmad Tavakoli was a far second in early results receiving between 2 and 18% of the vote, according to the IRNA early figures. Tavakoli, an economist, had campaigned on pledges to improve the economy.

In 1997, Khatami received nearly 70% of the vote over a conservative opponent.

Interior Ministry sources predicted that the turnout from Friday’s election would surpass 70% or 30 million of the 42.1 million Iranians who have reached the voting age of 16.

Two potent forces - Khatami’s popular movement and the nation’s Islamic overseers - offer visions that seem difficult to reconcile and strike at the heart of how the country should be managed.

Khatami sees an ‘‘Islamic democracy’’ with room for some Western-inspired rights, fewer social restrictions and better contacts with the West.

Conservatives have reacted harshly against changes they fear could erode their enormous influence over nearly every aspect of life.

After voting, Khatami said his goal was to merge ‘‘independence, freedom and progress’’ with Iran’s ‘‘Islamic identity’’.

But huge questions hang over the second, and final, four-year term for Khatami.

Among them - how far and fast can he integrate concepts of openness in a nation built upon the uncompromising values of an Islamic revolution 22 years ago?

Prominent activists and journalists have been jailed and dozens of publications remain banned.

‘‘It’s all about power and where it comes from - clerics or the people,’’ said political analyst Mohammad Hadi Semati.

The most senior dissident cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hussein Ali Montazeri, voted from his house arrest quarters in the holy city of Qom, the nation’s centre of Islamic study.