About 83 percent of Iran's 38.7 million eligible voters turned out to cast ballots Friday. The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the elections, is expected to announce final national results when they become known later this week. But already the reformists have won more seats than they predicted. Iranians have come to expect major changes in society since Khatami began widening individual freedoms, freeing the press and reducing the clergy's interference in government, the judiciary and people's lives. The conservative Guardians Council must approve all legislation passed by parliament, and Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has final say in all matters.
Conservatives also control the armed forces, the judiciary and radio and television stations.
A woman counts ballots after parliamentary elections in Tehran Hard-liners who lost parliamentary seats in Friday's elections included Ali Fallahian, a former intelligence minister whose agents were accused of killing political enemies. Reformists have said police should question Fallahian about his possible knowledge of rogue Intelligence Ministry agents who killed five dissidents in 1998. In 1997, a German court issued a warrant against Fallahian and said that Iran's highest rulers ordered the 1992 assassination of an Iranian-Kurdish opposition figure in Berlin. Ali Zadsar, an outspoken hard-liner who was involved in the failed impeachment bid against Culture Minister Ataollah Mohajerani, also lost his seat in Jiroft in southern Iran. Another losing conservative stalwart is Ahmed Rasouli-Nejad, an incumbent from Damavand in northern Iran.