Ahmadinejad rivals rout president in runoff polls

Tehran Supporters of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have been reduced to a small fraction in Iran's legislature, hugely outnumbered by the conservatives who once backed him, but then turned against him after he was perceived to challenge the authority of top clerics, according to final results from a runoff parliamentary election announced Saturday.

Iran has touted the turnout for Friday's vote as a show of support for the country's religious leadership in their confrontation with the West over the nuclear programme.

The result is also a new humiliation for Ahmadinejad, whose political decline started last year with his challenge of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the choice of intelligence chief.

While usually in agreement with the conservatives on foreign policy and many other issues, he had tried to change the rules of the political game in the country, where the president and legislature are subordinate to religious figures like Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad's opponents had already won an outright majority in the 290-member legislature in the first round of voting in March. Of 65 seats for grabs in Friday's runoff election, Ahmadinejad's opponents won 41 while the president's supporters got only 13 seats. Independents won 11, according to the Mehr news agency.

The president's supporters had their best showing in the capital Tehran. Ahmadinejad's conservatives critics won 16 seats while his supporters nine. Iran's major reformist parties, who oppose both Ahmadinejad and the conservatives, did not field candidates.

The new parliament will begin sessions late this month. It has no direct control over key foreign and security policy matters like Iran's nuclear programme, but it can influence those issues and economic policies as well as the run-up to the election of Ahmadinejad's successor.