Reformist parties loyal to President Mohamed Khatami have won a landslide victory in the parliamentary elections in Iran. Eighty per cent of the electorate participated in the poll on Friday, surpassing the high turnout for Mr Khatami in 1997.
By their enthusiasm, Iranians have sent a clear signal to religious conservatives that they will no longer tolerate the imposition of "Islamic" standards of thought, dress and behaviour. Without a conservative parliament to block him, Mr Khatami should now be able to carry out the promises of the civic society which he created in 1997.
According to results announced yesterday by the Islamic Participation Front, which is led by Mr Khatami's younger brother, Dr Mohamed Reza Khatami, reformers have won 126 of 167 seats or 75 per cent of the votes already counted outside Tehran.
Official estimates indicate that reformers have swept Isfahan, Mashad and Tabriz, three of Iran's biggest cities. There are 290 seats in the Majlis and the victors in many constituencies will not be known until a run-off that could take place as late as April.
There were more than 800 candidates for Tehran's 30 seats. Because ballots are counted by hand, final results for the first round in the capital will not be available for several more days. But partial tallies reported in reformist newspapers said Dr Mohamed Reza Khatami was leading the Tehran poll, followed by two other reformers, Dr Ali Reza Nouri and Mrs Jamileh Kadivar.
Dr Nouri is the brother of Mr Abdollah Nouri, President Khatami's former interior minister who has been imprisoned since last October for "anti-Islamic propaganda". In an apparent sign of their desire for appeasement, the religious conservatives, who control the judiciary, yesterday granted Mr Nouri a week's leave from prison.
Mrs Kadivar is married to the reformist culture minister, and is the sister of a popular cleric who opposes the religious establishment and who has been imprisoned along with Ayatollah Montazeri.
The biggest loser is the former two-term president, Mr Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who led the conservatives' list nationwide and stood as a candidate in Tehran. Reformists claim he has not even won a seat in the first round, a devastating defeat if true. The conservatives allege that Mr Rafsanjani could still be placed 15th or 17th out of the 30 Tehran seats.
Many Iranians accuse Mr Rafsanjani of corruption; he has accumulated an immense fortune, but claims it came from his family. Mr Rafsanjani has also suffered from an association in the minds of voters with the murder of up to 100 political opponents during his administration.
The only reported election violence occurred in the south-western towns of Shush and Shadegan, where eight people were killed and 10 injured in riots on Saturday. The protesters, who burned cars and attacked government buildings, accused the local winner of having bribed voters.
