REFORMISTS WOULD LOSE NEXT ELECTIONS IF THEY DO NOT CHANGE COURSE

TEHRAN, 3 Mar. (IPS-IRNA) “The extremely low turnout in the Friday city and rural council elections showed that Iranians are disgusted and disillusioned with the status quo” commented the pro-reform English-language “Iran Daily” confirming what most analysts have said in the past two days about the elections that dealt a heavy blow to both President Mohammad Khatami and the “official” reformers.

According to latest official results, in Tehran, some 700 000 out of five million eligible voters went to the polls. The average for the whole of the country was put at about fifty per cent, with more than 25 millions abstaining. None of the candidates presented by the Islamic Iran participation Front the country’s largest political organisation that backs the President and also controls the Majles nor those from the Iran Freedom Movement and the national-religious groups were among the 15 candidates that made their way into the new Tehran city council.

"If reform lobbies fail to see their failures and follies soon, it is very likely that they will be routed in the next parliamentary elections one year from now" the paper predicted, adding that the “powerful message” conveyed by the millions of eligible voters who did not bother to vote is that: "Those who speak on behalf of the people must change the way they do things", said the paper published by the official news agency IRNA.

"If numbers mean anything to both the reformers and their conservative rivals, Friday's elections must sound a serious wake-up call for them and their peers" the daily noted an indirect reference to the leader of the regime Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i who even after crushing defeat of the conservatives in the 1997 presidential elections, he thanked God because more than 27 millions had took part in the race, thus confirming their devotion to the Islamic Republic, as he had put it at the time.

Explaining the reason for the resounding defeat of the reformists who had been “catapulted to power on their promises of change and betterment”, the paper cites a long list of grievances and wholesale disappointments, broken promises, confused priorities, internecine feuds, reformists pitted against their rivals and the repeated conspiracy theory.

“Friday's event was the first time in a quarter century of the Islamic Republic's history that a vast majority of the electorate rebuffed politicians and preachers of various interests, backgrounds and mentality”, the daily wrote in conclusion. ENDS CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS 3303