Iran's hardliners formally secured enough seats to retake control of Iran's next parliament, while tension over an election denounced by reformers as a "historic fiasco" but proclaimed free and fair by conservatives degenerated on Monday into a shouting match inside the chamber.
The conservative victory, which was met with disappointment in Washington and denunciation by the EU, denies liberals an important forum to challenge hardliner policies and appointees who have final say in almost all affairs. It also leaves reformist President Mohammad Khatami without a key source of support in his foundering drive to ease social and political restrictions.
Interior Ministry figures released on Monday showed conservative candidates considered loyal to Iran's Islamic rulers took at least 149 seats in the 290-seat parliament, which has been controlled by pro-reform lawmakers since their landslide win four years ago. That put conservatives past the 146-seat benchmark for a clear majority in the next parliament, which will be seated in June.
PHOTO: AFP
Reformers and self-described independents had taken about 65 seats in the legislature, according to the tally. The final count was expected yesterday.
The results were expected before Friday's vote. Reformers widely boycotted the election after more than 2,400 liberal candidates were banned from running by the hardline Guardian Council.
The nationwide turnout stood at slightly more than 50 percent, a noticeable drop from the 67.2 percent in the last parliamentary elections in 2000. In Tehran, the Iranian capital and the country's biggest city, just 33 percent of voters turned out, the Interior Ministry said.
Iranian lawmakers from opposing sides traded accusations -- and occasional insults -- on Monday during the first session of the outgoing legislature since the election.
"Victory in a competition without rivals is not epic but a historic fiasco," reformist lawmaker Rasoul Mehrparvar said during an open session of parliament broadcast live on state-run radio.
Mehrparvar, barred from seeking re-election, said hardliners must await God's punishment.
"I hope you will be questioned on Judgment Day before God because you are not responsive to the people in this world," he said, addressing the head of the hardline Guardian Council.
The comments angered the hardliners.
"The vote was not a sham election. It was a fair and free election," conservative Ghodratollah Alikhani said in an emotional speech. He gestured so strongly that his clerical turban fell from his head to the floor.
Alikhani said he was unhappy with the mass disqualification of candidates but would not accept reformers' criticism of Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters.
"If, while debating resignations, you object to sacred values or the leader, I'll be the first to stand up to you with all my power," an angry Alikhani said.
When reformist Reza Yousefian told him "Don't holler," Alikhani shot back, "Shut up, you idiot," as he ran toward Yousefian, throwing punches in the air. Lawmakers intervened to keep Alikhani back.
In Tehran, previously a liberal stronghold, the new conservative group "Developers of Islamic Iran" was firmly in the lead.
The group is led by Gholamali Haddadadel, a conservative figure with a family relationship to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The US expressed disappointment with the election results, but the Bush administration continued to hope for revival of a reformist trend in the country.
"Our view is that the pressure for reform in Iran, the pressure for democracy in Iran, is going to continue, notwithstanding the setback that's represented by the elections," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.
EU foreign ministers denounced the election as undemocratic and warned of a new chill on efforts to warm relations between Tehran and the West.
Le Tuan Binh keeps his Moroccan soldier father’s tombstone at his village home north of Hanoi, a treasured reminder of a man whose community in Vietnam has been largely forgotten. Mzid Ben Ali, or “Mohammed” as Binh calls him, was one of tens of thousands of North Africans who served in the French army as it battled to maintain its colonial rule of Indochina. He fought for France against the Viet Minh independence movement in the 1950s, before leaving the military — as either a defector or a captive — and making a life for himself in Vietnam. “It’s very emotional for me,”
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reaffirmed his pledge to replace India’s religion-based marriage and inheritance laws with a uniform civil code if he returns to office for a third term, a move that some minority groups have opposed. In an interview with the Times of India listing his agenda, Modi said his government would push for making the code a reality. “It is clear that separate laws for communities are detrimental to the health of society,” he said in the interview published yesterday. “We cannot be a nation where one community is progressing with the support of the Constitution while the other
The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Central Committee is to gather in July for a key meeting known as a plenum, the third since the body of elite decisionmakers was elected in 2022, focusing on reforms amid “challenges” at home and complexities broad. Plenums are important events on China’s political calendar that require the attendance of all of the Central Committee, comprising 205 members and 171 alternate members with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at the helm. The Central Committee typically holds seven plenums between party congresses, which are held once every five years. The current central committee members were elected at the
CODIFYING DISCRIMINATION: Transgender people would be sentenced to three years in prison, while same-sex relations could land a person in jail for more than a decade Iraq’s parliament on Saturday passed a bill criminalizing same-sex relations, which would receive a sentence of up to 15 years in prison, in a move rights groups condemned as an “attack on human rights.” Transgender people would be sentenced to three years’ jail under the amendments to a 1988 anti-prostitution law, which were adopted during a session attended by 170 of 329 lawmakers. A previous draft had proposed capital punishment for same-sex relations, in what campaigners had called a “dangerous” escalation. The new amendments enable courts to sentence people engaging in same-sex relations to 10 to 15 years in prison, according to the