Vote defies West, say Iranian leaders

TEHRAN (Iran)—Iranian leaders said Sunday their victory in parliamentary elections showed voters’ defiance of the West after allies of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the largest share.
But a powerful bloc of Ahmadinejad’s conservative opponents made a strong showing — a split that could mean frictions between the president and former supporters disillusioned by his fiery, populist rule and handling of the economy.
Vote counting was complete everywhere in the country except for the capital, Tehran, showing conservatives who support Iran’s clerical leadership maintaining the hold they have had on parliament since 2004.
Iran’s Interior Ministry reported turnout in Friday’s vote at around 60 percent, up somewhat from 51 percent in 2004. It fell short though of the near 80 percent that turned out in the late 1990s and early 2000s, when a full slate of reformist candidates was allowed to run and was swept into power.
The unelected cleric-led Guardian Council threw out most of the reform movements candidates when it disqualified some 1,700 of them for insufficient loyalty to Islam and Iran’s 1979 revolution.
Washington said Iran’s leadership had “cooked” the election by barring reformists. The European Union said the vote was “neither fair nor free” because the disqualifications prevented Iranians “from being able to choose freely amongst the full range of political views.” It said the barring of reformers was a “clear violation of international norms.”—Agencies