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Change Your Life! |
Reformists
win majority of seats announced in Iran's run-off polls |
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News
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May 7, 2000
TEHRAN,
MAY 6 (AP) - In another boost for Iran's moderate president, reformists won
three-quarters of the 46 parliamentary seats for which run-off results were
declared Saturday, according to winners announced by Tehran Radio.
Reformists
won 35 of the declared seats. The other 11 announced
by the state-run radio went to a hard-line conservative and 10 independents.
Twenty seats had not yet been announced.
The
hard-line Guardian Council, which oversees elections, still
must endorse the results. It annulled a dozen reformist victories in the
Feb. 18 first round.
If
the Council endorses the latest results and 29 first-round
reformist victories in the capital, Tehran, that it has yet to finalize,
reformists will control the parliament for the first time since the 1979
Islamic revolution. Reformists won about 70 percent of races in February.
With
a simple majority in the 290-seat Majlis, reform-minded
politicians could pass laws granting greater social freedoms and weakening
hard-liners' grip on key institutions. Hard-liners control the judiciary,
military and broadcasting.
In
recent weeks, Islamic hard-liners trying to cling to power
despite growing unpopularity have closed 16 pro-democracy newspapers and
detained several leading supporters of President Mohammad Khatami's reforms.
Khatami's
brother, leader of the largest pro-reform party, called
the partial run-off results "a clear message to all those people who in
the recent months have been resorting to illegal means and seemingly
legal pretexts to defeat this promising movement."
"It
is hoped that everyone would now bow to the vote of the
people so that the pure ideals of the Islamic revolution and the programs of
the esteemed president will be materialized under national unity and calm -
and within the law," the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency quoted
Mohammad-Reza Khatami as saying on behalf of his Islamic Iran Participation
Front.
Whether the run-off results will open the way to more confrontation isn't clear. Opponents of reforms promoted by president Khatami have shown they won't easily give up power.
Reformists
maintain that the hard-line crackdown on newspapers
and activists could be an attempt to provoke riots that would bring troops
into the streets and create a state of national emergency. Such a situation
would give hard-liners more time to maneuver.
Some
reformists fear that another big election defeat for hard-liners
could lead to an attempt to delay the May 27 opening of the Majlis, which
constitutionally must be inaugurated on time except in a national emergency.
Khatami
has a solid following among Iran's predominantly young
population, and the president's pro-democracy allies had been expected to
make a strong showing in the run-off.
In
all, 132 candidates, including six women, were competing for
66 seats in 52 constituencies in Friday's balloting. Run-offs were needed in
constituencies where no candidate received the minimum 25 percent of votes
in February. Only the two front-runners from the last round were eligible to
contest each seat.
Voting
in constituencies where results were annulled was to take
place at an as-yet unscheduled time.
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