IRAN: Iran's conservative establishment looked set to sweep the boards in parliamentary elections yesterday, as violence over disputed poll results left at least four dead in southern provinces.
As the interior ministry continued to count votes last night, reports emerged of clashes between protesters and police in the southern town of Firouzabad on Saturday that left four people dead and over a dozen injured.
The violence began when local authorities announced an unusually high turnout in a close race between a reformist and conservative candidate, prompting fears of vote rigging.
In another incident on Saturday in the town of Izeh in the province of Khuzestan, there were unconfirmed reports of four dead when protesters tried to storm the local governor's office, according to the student news agency ISNA.
By early evening, the interior ministry reported the conservatives had won over 133 out of 290 parliamentary seats with ballots still being counted. They looked set to secure the 146 seat benchmark needed for a parliamentary majority.
The reformists had boycotted the election in protest at the decision of the hard line Guardian Council to disqualify more than 2,400 moderate candidates, including some 80 sitting MPs, from standing in the elections.
With victory assured for the conservative establishment, both sides turned their attention to voter turnout, a key test of the disputed election's legitimacy.
The conservative controlled state media, which had urged Iranians to vote on Friday as a religious obligation, estimated the figure at 60 per cent. But the reformist interior ministry disputed the claim and put voter turnout at 50.6 per cent, the lowest since parliamentary polls held in 1980.
Ignoring the debate over figures, the conservatives moved quickly to cement their victory as a triumph over the country's "enemies".
"The losers in this election are the United States , Israeli Zionists and the country's enemies," said a defiant Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader and highest political authority.
"Oh! dear and exalted nation, your turnout on Friday at the ballot box was a national and an Islamic epic in the true meaning," said Ayatollah Khamenei. In a reference to the angry dispute over the disqualification of thousands of reformist candidates, he urged the liberal and conservative camps to "put aside the annoying discussion of winner and loser".
The real losers seem to be the country's reformists, whose much-heralded attempt to change the face of the theocracy has ended in failure.
"I don't want to say it's the end of reform," said leading reformist MP Mr Mohsen Mirdamadi.
"The main engine for reform during the last five years was in parliament. We are going to have to transfer this effort to society and to non-governmental organisations."
Control of parliament is an important step for the conservatives who already dominate the judiciary and security apparatus. Their electoral victory will further marginalise the weary reformist president, Mr Mohammad Khatami who will be forced to collaborate with the conservatives until his term ends in mid 2005.
The next parliament will be dominated by a conservative bloc known as the Developers of Islamic Iran, a group with close ties to the supreme leader.
The bloc includes ultra-conservative ideologues and former hostage takers who seized the US embassy in Tehran shortly after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah.
Their victory has renewed fears that the reformists' more moderate approach to social and political freedom in recent years could be dismantled by the new conservative parliament.
"There may be a tendency to create total control of the political sphere," said one Iranian political analyst who declined to be named.
"Something of a return to the repressive environment of the late 1980s or early 1990s. Perhaps even worse than that."
He said that public apathy may come back to haunt Iranians who may not have appreciated the reformists' achievements, however limited.
"This situation will be a real shock to the people who have been so indifferent to what's happening. People really underestimate what the reforms have achieved."