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Early returns bolster Iran's reformers

TEHRAN: First returns on Saturday in Iran's parliamentary polls showed some notable gains for reformers at the expense of conservative incumbents.

But results in the key urban centres from Friday's vote, including the highly politicised capital Tehran, were not expected for some time.

Election officials at the interior ministry declared the winners of 40 seats in the expanded 290-seat parliament, with 21 going to members of the broad reformist coalition backing President Mohammad Khatami.

The balance was won by conservatives and independents or candidates with unknown affiliations. Of the 40 winners, just nine were incumbents, mostly conservatives.

Parties and factions are a relatively new phenomenon in Iran and their fluid nature make an exact tally impossible. However, the smaller outgoing parliament was composed of roughly 120 conservatives, 80 reformers and 70 independents.

Among the losers were two well-known conservative MPs, including a leading critic of Khatami and his liberal cultural policies.

Ali Zadsar, the hardliner from Jiroft, in southern Kerman province, was defeated by the reformist candidate backed by Iran's leading student movement, officials said.

Zadsar had been a prominent critics of the president and one of the driving forces in the failed impeachment last year of Culture Minister Ataollah Mohajerani.

In Khatami's hometown of Ardakan, in Iran's central desert, reformist Mohammad Reza Tabesh, a close relative and aide to the president, defeated the conservative incumbent.

But the early results did not go all the reformers' way. A centre-right candidate in the city of Yazd, seen as a Khatami stronghold near Ardakan, defeated the pro-reform incumbent.

"Whatever the results, the most immediate gain from this is a wonderful victory for the great nation, which with its presence added another golden page to the book of its destiny," President Khatami said in a message to voters.

"You cultured people showed that you are still moving toward strengthening the system, whose pillars remain Islam and spirituality, independence, freedom and progress."

Earlier, officials of the main reformist coalition, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, said their own rough exit polls in Tehran had found strong support for their slate.

They said they had similar reports from the provinces after the close of the poll, widely seen as a referendum on Khatami's liberal reforms which have been stymied by entrenched conservatives in the current parliament.

There was no immediate reaction from the main conservative coalition, which had predicted before the elections that it would retain control of the 250-seat parliament.

Officials, who extended voting by two hours because of the large turnout, said the final tally from Tehran, with 3,200 voting stations, could take about 10 days.

Mohammad Reza Abbasifard, a member of the Guardian Council which supervised the elections, said he estimated that 70 to 80 percent of the 38.7 million eligible voters had cast ballots, Iran's news agency IRNA reported late on Friday.

A solid parliamentary majority would boost Khatami's effortsto create a civil society within Iran's Islamic system.

The Participation Front's manifesto promises to expand freedom of the press, reform the hidebound judiciary and reduce the scope for clerical meddling in future elections.

It has also pledged greater transparency in government, with outspoken members suggesting the time was ripe for renewing ties to the United States, Iran's arch-enemy.

Many conservatives support gradual change, fearing swift reforms would water down Islamic and revolutionary values.

Publicly they oppose relations with the United States, but privately many say they are ready to do business with Washington.

The United States, for its part, has been paying close attention to the Iranian polls.

"As I understand it, there has been a high turnout in Iran and they are still counting the votes," U.S. Secretary of State Madelein Albright told a news conference in the Croatian capital Zagreb.

"I must say that I am interested in the fact that there is a high turnout and we will just have to see what the voters of Iran have chosen," she said.

Washington is eager to turn a recent cultural thaw between the two countries into a political dialogue. Many there are hopeful a reformist parliament might provide a needed opening.-Reuters