Iranian Vote Likely to Favor Hard-Liners

TEHRAN, Iran - Torn between a reformist boycott and calls by conservatives to give "a slap to America's face," Iranians voted Friday in elections likely to return the nation's legislature to Islamic hard-liners.

With thousands of reform candidates disqualified - and the ballot weighted with conservatives - the fight was more about how many votes will be cast for the 290-seat parliament than who would win. Turnout was being watched as a test of public sentiment.

Conservatives responded to the boycott with the full power of state media: nonstop radio and television coverage with pro-vote comments from citizens and leaders and claims of a massive turnout. At a mosque in central Tehran, loudspeakers broadcast voting appeals.

Boycott-backers resorted to smaller methods, using e-mail, Web sites and a blitz of mobile phone text messages to press a protest called after clerics banned 2,400 liberals from running. The main Web site of the Islamic Participation Front, the biggest reformist group, appeared blocked by state-imposed filters.

Poll closed after staying open four extra hours in most provinces - two hours beyond the maximum allowed by law - an apparent attempt by hard-liners to ensure the highest possible turnout.

More than 46 million people aged 15 and over are eligible to vote, but it was difficult to independently gauge turnout. About 150,000 police were stationed around the country, and there were no immediate reports of violence.

Some downtown Tehran polls were empty, but other areas around the country reported a steady flow of voters. Iranians voted at mosques, desert outposts for nomads and even cemeteries for those making traditional weekly visit to graves.

Iran's hard-line clerical leadership seeks a significant voter response to demonstrate its enduring strength 25 years after the Islamic Revolution.

Reformists' strength in a nation with so many young voters - about half of Iran's 65 million people are under 25 - also is being tested: They hope young people will boycott, heeding their complaint that clerics rigged the vote to regain the legislative control they lost four years ago for the first time since 1979.

"The lower the numbers, the bigger the reformers' silent victory," said political analyst Davoud Hermidas Bavand.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - the country's top political and religious authority - voted about 30 minutes after polls opened Friday morning.

"You see how those who are against the Iranian nation and the revolution are trying so hard to prevent people from going to the polls," Khamenei told state television in Tehran. "I do not think these enthusiastic young people will be prevented from fulfilling their duty."

Reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who bowed to pressure from clerics and urged a large turnout, was grim-faced as he voted. "Whatever the result of the elections, we must accept it," he said at a polling station.

Reformers hope voter participation falls by at least half in their urban strongholds, including the capital, Tehran. Parliament elections in 2000 attracted more than 67 percent of voters nationwide and almost 47 percent in Tehran province.