Iranians vote today for selected candidates

IRANIANS go to the polls today in the fifth parliamentary election since Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini founded the Islamic Republic in 1979.

They will choose a 270 member Majlis from among more than 3,200 candidates approved by the Council of Guardians who excluded nearly 2,000 independents and opponents of the clerical regime on the grounds that they did not believe in Iran's Islamic state system or its government.

More than 30 million Iranians over the age of 16 are eligible to vote in 196 constituencies. A candidate must secure one third of the votes in his constituency to win a seat, otherwise the two most successful stand in a run off to take place about a month from now.

In the previous poll, in 1992, only half of the deputies were elected on the first ballot and only 65 per cent of the electorate bothered to vote.

In that election 70 per cent of the seats were won by supporters of President Hashemi Rafsanjani, the leader of the progressive, reformist faction, the Association of Combatant Clerics of Tehran. He stood for reconciliation with the West, a market economy and social liberalisation.

Since then, however, he has failed to take Iran out of its isolation, achieve a level of economic growth to provide for the country's growing population and free Iranians of domination by the repressive, reactionary clergy and their 300,000 strong volunteer force which enforces Islamic dress and Islamic standards of behaviour.

Iranians suffer from mass unemployment, high inflation and the falling price of oil, the country's major source of income. Over the past two years Iran's major cities have seen violent protests against economic policy.

Conservative clerics grouped in the radical Association of Combat ant Clergy of Tehran, an offshoot of the main faction, have mounted a serious challenge during the one week campaign. Led by the Speaker of Parliament Mr Hajatolislam Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri, the conservatives have attempted to mobilise their supporters through professional and merchants' associations and mosques.