Iran Parliamentary Elections:Iranians Vote in Election That May End Reform Drive

By Parinoosh Arami and Paul Taylor
Fri February 20, 2004 06:24 AM ET

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Urged by prayer leaders to "slap America in the face," Iranians voted Friday in a disputed parliamentary election set to tighten hard-liners' grip on power and end President Mohammad Khatami's faltering reform drive.

A short, lackluster campaign was overshadowed by a ban on most reformist candidates and a crackdown on pro-reform media amid apparent public indifference. The main uncertainty concerns the turnout, with even the size of the electorate in dispute.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, among the first to cast his ballot, said the Islamic Republic's enemies were trying to deter young people from voting -- an apparent reference to a boycott by blacklisted reformist lawmakers and student groups.

"You see how those who are against the Iranian nation and the Islamic revolution are trying so hard to prevent people from going to the polls," Khamenei told state television.

Conservatives seem certain to dominate the new assembly after the Guardian Council, an unelected panel of hard-line clerics, disqualified 2,500 mainly reformist aspirants and a further 1,179 contenders withdrew.

As I, and many others, predicted the rhetoric against Iran and the actions of Dubbyuh's administration in the Middle East have lead to a retrenchment of Iran's hardliners. This will set back the progressive reforms that have been under way in Iran by several years, if not decades.

So long as Dubbyuh and his merry band remain in control of this nation, we can only expect more, and more serious, blowback from their policies.