TEHRAN 3 Mar. (IPS) “The spectacular defeat of the reformists in the last elections would certainly foster the hands of Washington in face of the Europeans as it proves that President George W. Bush was right when, some times ago, he said none of the wings in the present Iranian leadership represented the people”, one seasoned Tehran analyst told Iran Press Service on condition of not being named.

President Mohammad Khatami, in his first reaction to the Friday city and rural council elections, squarely put the blame of the resounding defeat of the reformists on the conservatives, warning that the unprecedented low turn of the voters might bring about the collapse of the regime as a whole.

"Though the government may have weaknesses in its performance, great works have been done. But, unfortunately, certain tribunes are misleading the public opinion by offering a gloomy picture of the overall situation. So there remains no place for reform", he said, complaining that “certain tribunes” are magnifying the shortcomings and displaying a gloomy picture of the situation, “something that is detrimental to the Islamic Republic”.


"When people become disappointed with democracy, there remain no alternative but dictatorship and in order to overthrow it, they may turn to foreigners", the embattled President added in a direct reference to the situation of neighbouring Iraq.

“If Iran becomes a dictatorship like Iraq, without any popular mandate, the Islamic regime's opponents will move to overthrow it, just like Saddam Hoseyn, Mr. Khatami said, addressing a seminar on "Challenges and Prospects for Development in Iran".
According to final results, just 49 pct of Iran's 41.2 million registered voters turned out for Friday's municipal elections, with only 700.000 out of five million residents of the Capital eligible to vote going to the polls, giving the independent candidates close to the ruling conservatives almost all of the 15 seats.
In the big cities the figure dropped to 15 pct or less, paving the way for the conservatives to take control of nearly all the seats won by reformers in Iran's first local elections four years ago.

But the turn out was very heavy in cities like Ahwaz, the capital of the oil-rich Khozestan Province, where voters elected Arab speaking candidates, expressing their dissatisfaction with the policies of the central government.

Welcoming the outcome of the elections, Mr. Khatami said that Friday elections “carried messages to the government”, but did not explained and did not accepted the results as a defeat for himself and the reformists he leads.

On the contrary, he said conservative’s repeated attacks on his government's policies have created disenchantment with the electoral process as a whole.

But he joined Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i in also baling the United States, which has placed Iran on an "axis of evil" along with Iraq and North Korea, as one of the factors explaining the crushing defeat of the reformers by deliberately "fanning extremism and undermining moderate, democratic trends in the Islamic world".
There has been a concerted effort to undermine any third way between the West and "backward-looking currents" in the Islamic world, and "certain factions (in Iran) are going along with it," the president said, without elaborating.

According to many Iranian political observers, Mr. Khatami´s blaming the US translates his fears to see evaporating the capital of sympathy he used to enjoy in the West, particularly with the European Union.

"The people become disappointed with the government system when they see the system takes its own way separate from what the people demand and is unable to handle the state of affairs properly", Khatami acknowledged.

"We don't believe that the opportunities are all lost. The people call on us to be careful, improve ourselves, so we have enough time to do so", he assured.
But some analysts like Mr. Ahmad Zeydabadi, an independent journalist close to the Nationalist-religious groups say the gap between people’s demands for changes with Mr. Khatami’s originally proposed reforms are so deep that the reformists could never bridge it, “no mater how fast they would run”. ENDS KHATAMI AND COUNCIL ELECTIONS 3303