BY THOMAS ERDBRINK | THE WASHINGTON POST
TEHRAN, Iran — Critics of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were leading Saturday in preliminary results from Friday’s parliamentary elections, but analysts stressed that his political clout in the assembly might stay the same, or even grow.
After the vote, for which state television reported a turnout of more than 60 percent, many leading lawmakers who have frequently criticized Ahmadinejad had won re-election, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.
Former parliamentary speaker and top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, Ahmad Tavakoli and Mohammad-Reza Bahonar, who all retained their Tehran constituency seats, had led rounds of attacks on Ahmadinejad over his handling of the economy, his choice of ministers and his continuing support for some controversial aides. But they have always held back when “higher forces in the system” — in Iranian politics, a coded reference to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — hinted that political instability was hurting the country.
“It is wrong to believe that camps are for or against the president,” said Hamid Reza Taraghi, a political analyst and spokesman for the Islamic Engineers coalition, a group of politically active merchants that has been critical of Ahmadinejad’s management of the economy.
For that reason, analysts said, the outcome of the vote will most likely be a continuation of the policies of the outgoing parliament: ongoing support for Iran’s nuclear program, strong criticism of Ahmadinejad, but for now, no attempt to impeach him.
Visits to several polling stations in Tehran without government minders suggested the turnout, while not independently verifiable, was higher than expected, especially after nearly three years of economic hardship, threats of war and a crackdown on domestic protests.
Khamenei had said last week that a high turnout would send a message to the West affirming the country’s stability.
Voters offered a range of reasons for going to the polls. Some said they hoped that substantial participation would head off more international sanctions or even war with the West, while others said they just wanted to show support for Iran’s Islamic leaders. Some said they wanted a stamped proof of voting in their identity card to help them get jobs or other perks.
