TEHRAN, 26 February 2004 — Iran’s conservatives were yesterday crowned as winners of the parliamentary elections, securing a firm majority in the assembly after polls that most of their incumbent reformist rivals were barred from contesting.
Final results from the Interior Ministry showed a likely coalition of hard-liners, conservatives and other right-wingers holding 156 of the 290 Majlis seats after the first round of voting. Reformists were decimated with just 39 seats. In addition, they can only contest 17 of the 58 seats that need a second round — pointing to a crushing right-wing majority when the new parliament convenes in May.
The result was hardly a surprise, given that the Guardians Council blacklisted most reformists ahead of the polls. But it was nevertheless a devastating blow to the reform camp, which swept to power in 2000 with a huge majority in the Majlis but saw its efforts to democratize the country blocked by more powerful hard-liners in the Guardians Council, judiciary or other right-wing bastions.
It will also spell isolation for President Mohammad Khatami, who will be one of the few reformers left in public office before his second and final term ends in June 2005.
Although his drive for political and social reforms look set to be halted, conservatives have vowed they will keep up economic reforms.
Speaking to the European Parliament in Brussels, Iran’s Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi yesterday criticized the elections and issued a veiled warning that the gap between the Iranian people and leadership could turn violent.
But the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner also called on the European Union to remain engaged with Tehran, saying that dialogue was the only way forward.
The low turnout in the ballots reflected a yawning “gap” between the people and their government, said the lawyer and rights activist.
“If the new groups that come to power seek to ignore the wishes of the people then the gap will widen,” she said. “It is natural that a society in which the people become distant from the government will suffer tension.”
Aside from the reformists already barred, more casualties emerged from the vote. The first was sitting Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karoubi, a close Khatami ally who had chosen not to boycott the elections.
A parliamentary source said that Karoubi would not be contesting the second round after failing to win in the first round.
The number of women in the Majlis will also drop from 13 to around eight, with just one of them having run on a pro-reform platform.
But behind the announcement of the results, the election remained bogged down in a dispute between reformists in the Interior Ministry — which organized the polls — and more powerful conservatives.
The Interior Ministry had put turnout in Tehran at 28 percent and nationwide at 50.57 percent — record lows for major polls in the Islamic republic founded by the 1979 revolution, which toppled the shah.
But the Guardians Council, which needs to approve the final result, has claimed the number of eligible voters was too high, and said the turnout, was closer to 60 percent.
Following the dispute, some officials said the official turnout figure — widely considered as a barometer of public support for the clerical regime — could rise to a figure that conservatives deem more respectable.
