Hard-liners pull ahead in Iran elections

Hard-liners allied with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pulled ahead in Iran’s parliamentary elections, according to partial results early today.

But the president’s critics were making a strong showing that could unsettle his domination of the legislature.

In particular, conservatives who have grown disillusioned with the fiery Ahmadinejad appeared to be gaining ground.

If such moderate conservatives do well, it could lead to greater frictions between the parliament and Ahmadinejad. Conservative critics say Ahmadinejad has fumbled efforts to fix the economy of the oil-rich nation – hit by high inflation and unemployment and fuel shortages.

They blame his fiery manner for worsening the stand-off with the West, bringing on UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme.

In 70 contests decided so far out of the 290 seats at stake, pro-Ahmadinejad hard-liners won 35 seats and reformists 13, according to results announced by state television and the official news agency IRNA and reports from local officials.

Conservative critics of Ahmadinejad have seized 22 seats so far, according to the results.

Reformists were hoping to at least form an effective minority bloc, larger than their approximately 40 seats in the outgoing parliament.

But the results so far pointed to how deeply the movement was hurt when Iran’s hard-line clerical leadership threw many of its candidates out of the race.

Ahead of Friday’s voting the unelected Guardian Council used its powers to disqualify 1,700 candidates on grounds of insufficient loyalty to Islam or Iran’s 1979 revolution.

As a result, reformist candidates were running in only about half of the races nationwide, according to nationwide lists of candidates. The results so far did not include Tehran, where reformist sentiment is strongest.

Many Iranians who support liberal reforms spent election day deliberating with friends and family, going back and forth between two options: vote and give legitimacy to an election many of them saw as unfair, or boycott and ensure an even stronger conservative domination of parliament.

In the end, Hesam Javadi, a 30-year-old computer technician, voted.

“We can’t stop the rain,” he said after casting his ballot for reformists at a north Tehran polling station. “But we can at least put an umbrella over our heads in self-defense.”

Reformists seek greater democracy at home and better relations with the West. Most want to dramatically reduce the powers of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei and the clerics who can overrule elected bodies like the parliament.

In contrast, so-called “moderate conservatives” avidly support the clerical leadership and want to protect its powers and enforce a more conservative social code among the public. But they have turned against Ahmadinejad since he came to office in 2005, often criticising him as too closed minded and confrontational.