Iran conservatives say win parliament majority

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Conservatives claimed a clear victory inIran's parliamentary election on Sunday, but the newlegislature may still give President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad atougher time ahead of next year's presidential poll.

The hardline president's reformist opponents tried tocapitalise on public discontent over high inflation in theworld's fourth-largest oil producer but many of their leadingcandidates were barred from running in Friday's vote.

Conservatives, who call themselves "principlists" forloyalty to the Islamic Republic's ideals, have taken 120 seatsin the 290-member assembly against 46 for reformists so far,the state Press TV station has reported.

That figure did not include Tehran, where conservativeswere also leading, according to official media.

"More than 70 percent of parliament seats belong toprinciplists," Shahabeddin Sadr, projected to win a seat forthe conservatives in the capital, told Reuters. "It is a greathonour that people put their trust in us again."

The Interior Ministry, which supervised the vote, has saida final nationwide tally might not come out until Monday.

But even if the conservatives' victory is confirmed,analysts said divisions among politicians ranging from radicalbackers of Ahmadinejad to his more pragmatic critics couldwiden as they jockey for position before the 2009 presidentialrace.

Reformists, who seek political and social change, and someconservatives have accused him of stoking inflation, now at 19percent, by lavishly spending Iran's windfall oil revenues onsubsidies, loans and handouts.

"You could have a possibility of some of the conservativesmaking a coalition with the reformists and making it difficultfor the president to pass his bills," one Iranian analyst whodeclined to be named said. "It will be a case to casesituation."

SHARPER SCRUTINY

Many reformists, who said they did well in view of the oddsagainst them, also said they expect Ahmadinejad to undergosharper scrutiny even in a conservative-controlled parliament.

"The president will face more challenges with the nextparliament than he did with the current one," said Mohammad AliAbtahi, a close ally of reformist ex-President MohammadKhatami.

Another reformist, Javad Ranjbar, said his allies couldstill strengthen their position by winning seats in run-offvotes to be held where no candidate had secured enough support.

Pro-reform politicians have also rebuked Ahmadinejad forspeeches that have kept Iran on a collision course with theUnited Nations over Tehran's disputed nuclear plans.

However, Ahmadinejad has won public backing from Iran's topauthority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who hasendorsed his handling of the nuclear row.

Conservatives also passed Ahmadinejad's spending plans inthe outgoing parliament, which they dominated.

The Interior Ministry put turnout at around 60 percent ofthe Islamic Republic's 44 million eligible voters.

The government had called for a high turnout as a show ofdefiance for Iran's "enemies" in the West. Reformists had alsourged their supporters to dent conservative power by voting.

"The United States was the real loser and it was theIranian people ... who emerged victorious," Foreign Ministryspokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told a news conference.

Washington, Iran's arch-foe, said the vetting process forcandidates meant the outcome of voting was "cooked".

The Guardian Council, a body of clerics and jurists, barredmany reformists when it screened potential candidates oncriteria such as commitment to Islam and the clerical system.

Washington has led international efforts to penalise Iranfor failing to allay suspicions that it is seeking nuclearweapons. Tehran says its nuclear programme is purely civilian.

(Additional reporting by Parisa Hafezi and Edmund Blair,Writing by Fredrik Dahl; Editing by Sami Aboudi)