Iranians vote for reforms for second time in year

For the second time this year Iranians have voted for change. According to official results at the weekend, reform candidates have captured 52 of the 66 parliamentary seats contested in Friday's run-off poll. Conservatives won 10 seats and four went to independents.

The vote gives the reform camp, allied to President Muhammad Khatami, a 59 per cent majority in the sixth Majlis, the English language Iran News reported.

The president's brother, Mr Muhammad Reza Khatami, leader of the Islamic Participation Front which groups the 18 reform and moderate factions, called the result "a clear message to all those people who have attempted to defeat this progressive movement".

Reformists won a majority of seats in the 290-member Majlis in the first round held on February 18th but the conservative-dominated Council of Guardians annulled results in a dozen constituencies and ordered repeated recounts in Tehran, where reformists were initially proclaimed the winners of 29 of the 30 seats. Yesterday the council, which must also verify the run-off results, claimed that "extensive vote rigging had come to light" in Tehran. However, an official of the reformist front said the recounts had not altered the standing of any candidates. He also said there was no suggestion that the Tehran election should be scrapped as a pretext to preventing the convening of the new Majlis on May 27th.

An Iranian source told The Irish Times yesterday that the attempt by conservatives to silence reformers and intimidate their supporters by closing down 16 liberal newspapers and jailing journalists before the campaign had "backfired". She said the people "just can't stand the faces of the clerics" who have governed for the past 20 years. "There's no way they could be voted back into power."

Having won control of parliament, the reformists must tackle what the Iran News called the "herculean task" of "satisfying the urgent and rightful demands of the people". Iranians want an early end to religious coercion and social restriction and longterm economic reform which will provide jobs, education, housing, healthcare and welfare for the deprived. If the reformists do not meet expectations, the clerical regime itself could be at risk. Iranians have a long history of overthrowing rulers who fail to deliver.