Region | Iran
Low turnout in Iran elections
Iranians voted on Friday in a low-key election likely to keep parliament in the grip of conservatives after unelected state bodies barred many reformist foes of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from the race.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:10 March 15, 2008
- Women wait outside a polling station in the city of Qom. The parliamentary election is Iran's eighth since the Islamic revolution in 1979.
- Image Credit: Reuters
Tehran/Washington: Iranians voted on Friday in a low-key election likely to keep parliament in the grip of conservatives after unelected state bodies barred many reformist foes of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from the race.
But the next assembly might not give Ahmadinejad an easy ride, even if conservatives dominate.
They include not just his allies, but critics of his economic policies and politicians looking beyond this election to the presidential poll in 2009.
Reformists favouring more political and social freedom had hoped to capitalise on public discontent about inflation, now at 19 per cent. But the vetting process and a government crackdown on dissent have muted their challenge. They may struggle to keep the 40 or so seats they held in the outgoing 290-seat assembly.
Food prices, not foreign policy or Iran's nuclear row with the West, are what most Iranians worry about in the world's fourth-largest oil producer.
"I hope this time they do a better job and pay more attention to the economy, the housing problem and inflation," said Soraya Tavasoli, a middle-aged woman backing the conservatives.
Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has effectively endorsed Ahmadinejad.
Khamenei usually stays above the political fray, but he was quoted as saying in newspapers on Thursday that Iranians should consider "voting for those who can pave the way for the current government which is active and willing to serve".
Support for Ahmadinejad
His support for Ahmadinejad was relayed by anonymous text messages to mobile phone users yesterday.
Some people ignored requests by the clerical establishment for a high turnout to defy Iran's "enemies" in the West.
Reformists, even while arguing the vote is unfair because so many of their candidates are disqualified, have urged Iran's 44 million eligible voters to deny conservatives an easy victory.
Some of those queueing at a polling station at a Tehran mosque had heeded that argument. "We have to support reformists. If we don't vote, their opponents will take more seats," said Mohammad Ziafati, 62, a retired teacher. Mahdi Karoubi, leader of the reformist National Trust Party, voiced satisfaction with the voting. "The public turnout has been at a favourable level," he told Iran's state Press TV.
The US State Department said that "in essence the results are cooked" in Iran"s elections because voters are not given a full choice. "They are cooked in the sense that the Iranian people were not able to vote for a full range of people," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. "They are given the choice of choosing between one supporter of the regime or another supporter of the regime. They were not given the opportunity ... to vote for somebody who might have had different ideas," McCormack said.
McCormack said the real power in Iran was held by an "unelected few," with Khamenei at the top. "These are not constituent elements of a thriving democracy and that is a shame for the Iranian people that they are denied the ability to choose truly who will lead them and be able to freely express their choices through the ballot box," added McCormack.
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