Local Vote Embarrassing Iran President

Iranian women fill in their ballot during city council and Expert Assembly elections, at a polling station, in Tehran on Friday, Dec. 15, 2006. Iranians began voting on Friday in the country's third-ever local council elections that could prove to be a public approval testing ground for hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Voters on Friday also cast ballots for the Assembly of Experts, a body of 86 senior clerics that monitor Iran's supreme leader and choose his successor. (AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian) (Hasan Sarbakhshian - AP)

TEHRAN, Iran -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad suffered an embarrassing blow in local council races, according to partial election results Monday, in voting viewed as a sign of public discontent with his hard-line stance.

The balloting represented a partial comeback for opponents of Ahmadinejad, whose Islamic government's policies have fueled fights with the West and brought Iran closer to U.N. sanctions.

Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, a relative moderate, polled the most votes of any Tehran candidate to win re-election to a key assembly post.

The biggest victory was for "moderate conservatives," supporters of Iran's cleric-led power structure who are angry at Ahmadinejad, saying he has needlessly provoked the West with harsh rhetoric and has failed to fix the country's faltering economy.

The election, held Friday, does not directly affect Ahmadinejad's administration and is not expected to bring immediate policy changes. It selected local councils that handle community matters in cities and towns across Iran.

But it represented the first time the public has weighed in on Ahmadinejad's stormy presidency since he took office in June 2005. The results, if the trend holds, could pressure Ahmadinejad to change at least his tone and focus more on high unemployment and other economic problems. Full official results are expected Tuesday.

Ahmadinejad, who was elected to a four-year term in June 2005, has escalated Iran's nuclear dispute with the United States, pushing ahead with uranium enrichment despite U.N. demands to suspend the process. As a result, Europe has come to support Washington's calls for sanctions to stop a program they fear aims to develop nuclear weapons, a claim Iran denies.

The president also has angered Europe and the U.S. by proclaiming Israel will one day be "wiped out" and hosting a conference casting doubt on the Nazi Holocaust.

"Ahmadinejad's list has suffered a decisive defeat nationwide," said the Islamic Iran Participation Front, the largest reformist party. "It is a big no to the government's authoritarian and inefficient methods."

In some cities such as Shiraz and Bandar Abbas, not one pro-Ahmadinejad candidate won a council seat, according to partial results announced by the Interior Ministry.

In Tehran, candidates supporting Mayor Mohammed Bagher Qalibaf, a moderate conservative, were on track to win seven of 15 council seats. Reformists were set to win four, while Ahmadinejad's allies had three, partial results showed. The last seat was likely to go to an independent.

Similar anti-Ahmadinejad sentiment was visible in a parallel election for members of the Assembly of Experts, a body of 86 senior clerics that monitors Iran's supreme leader and chooses his successor. Several pro-reform clerics were barred from running, but conservative opponents of the president appeared to outperform his supporters.