Ahmadinejad's support crumbles in Iran runoff

Iranian electoral workers count the ballots of the parliamentary runoff elections, in a polling station, in Tehran, Iran, May 4, 2012. / AP Photo/Vahid Salemi

(AP) TEHRAN, Iran - President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's support in Iran's parliament crumbled as final results released Saturday showed conservative rivals consolidating their hold on the legislative body in a runoff vote.

Iran has touted a robust turnout for Friday's vote as a show of support for the country's religious leadership in its confrontation with the West over the Islamic Republic's controversial nuclear program.

The result is also a new humiliation for Ahmadinejad, whose political decline started last year with his bold but failed challenge of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the choice of intelligence chief.

While usually in agreement with the conservatives on foreign policy and many other issues, he had tried to change the rules of the political game in Iran, where the president and legislature are subordinate to religious figures like Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad's opponents had already won an outright majority in the 290-member legislature in the first round of voting in March. Of 65 seats up for grabs in Friday's runoff election, Ahmadinejad's opponents won 41 while the president's supporters got only 13 seats. Independents won 11, according to final results reported Saturday by state media.

There were no claims of irregularities — which touched off the huge protests in 2009 after accusations the results were rigged. But the ruling system vets the candidates in advance which eliminates the harshest critics.

Iran's major reformist parties, which oppose both Ahmadinejad and the conservatives, mostly did not field candidates.

The president's supporters had their best showing in the capital Tehran. Ahmadinejad's conservatives critics won 16 seats while his supporters took nine.

The new parliament will begin its sessions in late May. It has no direct control over key foreign and security policy matters like Iran's nuclear program, but it can influence those issues and economic policies as well as the run-up to the election of Ahmadinejad's successor. Ahmadinejad is constitutionally barred from seeking a third consecutive four-year term.

The results suggest Ahmadinejad will face a more belligerent parliament in the remaining time of his second four-year term in office that ends August 2013. His allies are likely to be ousted from key posts, and his plan to cut economic subsidies challenged.

No final figures were released, but Iran's media has claimed that the turnout Saturday matched that of the initial round of voting on March 2, when 64 percent of voters reportedly cast ballots.

"Mass turnout in runoff parliamentary elections," declared a front-page headline in the government-run Iran Daily.

Iranian leaders have showcased the high voter turnout as a sign of trust in the clerical-led system and rejection of Western pressure over the nuclear issue. The West suspects Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and is demanding that Iran stop uranium enrichment. Iran has refused, saying its program is aimed at power generation and cancer treatment.

"The vote is support for the ruling system as it faces the U.S. and its allies over the nuclear program ... The vote also means that tensions will increase between Ahmadinejad and his opponents in the incoming parliament," political analyst Ali Reza Khamesian said.

Khamesian said Ahmadinejad was gradually fading from Iran's political scene but could still stir up conflict with parliament.

"Ahmadinejad is the losing party. So, he will try to create tensions in the hope of getting concessions," he said.

The outgoing parliament and Ahmadinejad are at loggerheads over how quickly to slash food and energy subsidies. The president favors dramatic cuts to boost Iran's ailing economy by reducing the massive drain on the state budget from the subsidies.

The government implemented a first phase of slashing subsidies in December 2010. Gasoline prices quadrupled and bread prices tripled after the cuts came into effect. Prices have also increased in recent months, partly as a result of sanctions over Iran's nuclear program, as well as news that the government is considering ending subsidies altogether.

Parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, one of Ahmadinejad's opponents, said the parliament won't allow him to quickly end the remaining subsidies because it would cause wild inflation and public dissatisfaction.

[rwsmith29456]

Does this mean they are putting in someone more recalcitrant than Ahmadinejad??

[jsf14]

Sound like it.

[smittyc]

Obama's foreign policy in the middle east is solidifying the clerics, the ayotallah and the muslim brotherhood. The Arab spring sparked by Obama and Clinton is backfiring, the support of a more religious government in Iran and Egypt is a clear indication that Israel be prepared to defend its borders and its Semitic identity. They are surrounded on all sides by a Muslim population that wants to obliterate them. Their strongest ally, the U.S. is led by a President who has muslim roots, and views them as a bargaining chip in the "game" of foreign diplomacy. Obama's statement, I've got Israels back should be weighed against earlier comments he made in another speech, don't turn your back on Obama Israelis, he carries a sharp knife.

[Well_You_Aint_Me]

Where was this posted? Rick Santorum's or Michelle Bachmann's Web Site?

[fastdraw2]

Why are you even covering this? The "election" in Iran is a farce, a bad joke, and everyone knows it. Therefore nobody outside Iran, and that would include 90% of the US, gives a sh*t. Don't you have other stuff that's not a fantasy to cover?

[Logical123]

The elections in Iran are far more fair and meaningful than American elections which are a farce. American elections are all based on money and the Republicans and Democrats have a stranglehold on the elections.

Besides, whoever gets elected to Congress immediately becomes the prisoner of AIPAC and other special interests. The US Congress is totally dysfunctional. In contrast, the Iranian parliament actually acts as a counter-weight to the president and passes meaningful legislation.

[peterb371]

I think shorty was accused of rigging the elections the last time. I guess he arranged to get his butt kicked this time.

[Orlandca]

Now if Israel would get new leaders, the world would have peace !

[Logical123]

To Mortar1SG_29: You must have been sleeping. The lunatics Netanyahu and Barak constantly threaten Iran with, "All options are on the table."

In contrast, Iran hasn't attacked another country in 300 years and has not threatened anyone, including pipsqueak Israel. The claim that Iran wants to "wipe out Israel" is complete lie and was based on a mis-translation of a single sentence in 2005. How long are people going to drag on this idiotic lie.

[jsf14]

Logicl123: What was the correct translation?

[Orlandca]

All to true, Just read the Tehran Times , You will see the untruths printed,

[julianpenrod]

The shills for the New World Order change their tune so readily. Only a few years ago, Iran was a dictatorship, Ahmadinejad ruling over a frightened populace who all wanted freedom. Now, it is ocmmented that the majority of the populace in Iran are more conservative than Ahmadinejad and Ahmadinejad himself had no problem with being at odds with the ruling religious leaders. Tools for the NWO have no problem with this, truth means nothing to them, they just say whatever lie is necessary to con the unwitting into supporting the clandestinely corporate Fascist New World Order agenda. And they don't worry about their target audience realizing they're lying, since their target audience consists of the most abysmally stupid and insipid.

[realtimecoffee]

Makes my heart yearn for the Old World Order.

[smittyc]

The difference between Iran and the U.S. population is the American population can fight back, we are an armed camp nationwide and no politician or religious zealot can ignore that fact thinking they can impose the will of a few and take away the freedoms of the many. God Bless America and God Bless the NRA.

[iamproteus]

There will be no new Iranian government as long as the Ayatollahs still call the shots. The legislature will continue to do their bidding.

[Logical123]

There is a complete misunderstanding about Iran. Ahmadinejad is leaving in a little more than a year. So, he is really irrelevant. The vote shows that Iran is even more conservative than Ahmadinejad. So, if Obama cannot make a deal with Ahmadinejad, he has no chance of making a deal with the next president.

[Logical123]

BishopRomney: What, you are reading your tea leaves again? What did I say that you don't agree with? Do you even know anything about the Iranian government structure? I don't have the time to educate you.

[robert1129]

Instead of imposing severe economic sanctions and establishing the European Missile Defense System, let us just take a time out and see how the new government plays out.

[awenshok]

This IS serious.
We may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the world's last remaining leisure suit market for dwarfs -- unless, of course, Sarkozy is re-elected.