Hardliners win Iran elections

The looming result leaves moderate President Mohammad Khatami and his Cabinet the only reformers still in office, facing a hostile Parliament and with little to show for seven years of struggling to reform the 25-year-old Islamic Republic.

Irna said 20 conservative candidates had gained enough votes in ballot boxes so far counted in Tehran to go to Parliament, adding to the 129 seats they had already won across the major oil-producing country of 66 million.

‘‘In respect to the votes counted, the first 20 of the (Alliance for the Advancement of Islamic Iran) have so far gained the conditions to go to Parliament,’’ the agency quoted Tehran election official Gholamreza Godini as saying.

But the Ministry spokesman said only just over two-thirds of Tehran votes had been counted so far and it was not yet certain how many candidates would be elected on the first round.

Defeated reformists say the poll was rigged when the 12-man hardline Guardian Council barred some 2,500 of their candidates from standing in Friday’s polls. Reformists have so far won only 40 seats compared to around 190 in the last Parliament.

The leader of the main conservative alliance, Gholamali Haddadadel, told a news conference the winners were not out for revenge and would not use violence to enforce Iran’s strict Islamic rules, which were loosened under Khatami.

‘‘We don’t want to go back, we just want to repair the reform clock, not to go forward or back,’’ he declared. Islamic values should be respected, he said. Outgoing deputies will step down at the end of May.

Independents won 30 seats, five places are reserved for the Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian minorities and 10 more Tehran seats have yet to be assigned while vote-counting in the capital continues.

The Interior Ministry said the turnout was 50.6 per cent, the lowest for a parliamentary election since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Ahmad Tavakoli, another senior conservative leader, told the EU to mind its own business after EU foreign ministers on Monday expressed ‘‘regret and disappointment that large numbers of candidates were prevented from standing’’. — (Reuters)