CONSERVATIVES WON THE ELECTIONS
TEHRAN, 22 Feb. (IPS) The Iranian Interior Ministry reported the turnout of the 20 February Majles elections was at 50.57 per cent, or to be more precise, 23.438.030 million eligible voters out of an estimated 46.300.000 went to the polls, at least 26 per cent down from the last exercise of 2000 that secured a landslide victory for the reformists backing President Mohammad Khatami.
The State-owned Radio and Television reported that turnout would be at least 60 percent nationwide, but an Interior Ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said his offices were "under tremendous pressure" from conservatives to inflate the turnout to match the television and radio predictions.
As the last results came, both sides claimed victory.
Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i was upbeat about voter turnout and said the election
was "totally free, healthy and legal", describing it as a "victory for Iran over the United States, Zionism and enemies of the Iranian nation", he told state media, referring to the reformists who had called for a national boycott of the race.In Tehran, the major bastion of the reformists, the conservatives swept all the 30 seats allocated to the Capital, with Mr. Adel Haddad, a scholar who is the husband of the daughter of Mr.Khameneh'i scored the largest amount of votes and Hojjatoleslam Mehdi Karroobi, the Speaker of the outgoing Parliament who had broke rank with the majority of rejected reformist lawmakers who had called for a national boycott of the elections, lost his place.
"The best message the voters sent to the nation is that there would be no more a minority and a majority (in the Parliament), but representatives who are at the service of the people, working to solve their problems", said Mr. Ahmad Tavakkoli, a conservative candidate with the second largest number of ballots told the students news agency ISNA.
So far, more than 150 MPs have been elected and 31 seats where a single candidate failed to win 25 percent of ballots cast will have to be fought over in a second round.
The conservative bloc — a mix of hard-liners and others considered loyal to the ruling clerics — had won at least 135 seats in the 290-member chamber, according to Interior Ministry figures. Reformers and self-described independents had about 65.
That put conservatives close to capturing the 146 seats needed for a majority, as had been widely expected after 2,400 candidates, including many reformers, were banned. Definitive results won't be known until Monday.
Reformists have complained that the vote was rigged. "If free elections had been held, we would have won a majority with 200 seats", Mostafa Tajzadeh, a top member of Islamic Iran Participation Front, (IIPF), the country’s largest political party said while conceding defeat.
The Council of the Guardians that barred more than 3.000 reformist hopefuls, including more than 80 incumbent lawmakers, among them Dr. Mohammad Reza Khatami, the younger brother of the lamed President, said the new MMs (Members of the Majles) should now focus on "upholding the divine religion of Islam", "encouraging spirituality and morality" and "fighting all forms of corruption and evil".
Election-related violence has killed at least eight and injured 16 others in two towns in southern Iran, a local official said.
In Firouzabad, a town about 620 miles south of Tehran, violence erupted after local results were announced Saturday evening, said Shah Hasani, an official at the provincial governor's office. He said three people were killed and 15 injured in clashes between police and supporters of a candidate who lost. "At least one person was killed and another injured during voting in Nourabab Mamassani, another town in southern Iran.
"A person who tried to clear the stamp from his identity card and vote for a second time was attacked by some people who belong to a rival ethnic group and killed," Hasani said.
Similar clashes were also reported from other parts of the country, mostly in the restive Provinces where Kurds are in majority, but also in the religious city of Mash-had, the Capital city of the north-eastern Province of Khorasan and in the southern region of Fars. ENDS ELECTIONS RESULTS 22204.