Iran Snap Analysis: The Election --- Still Confusing, Still Muddled

A juxtaposition this morning --- in the US, TV networks are racing each other to bring out a precise result for the Republican contests in "Super Tuesday", hours (and even minutes) after the polls closed.

In Iran, five days after the Parliamentary vote, almost no one is showing the desire to clarify the outcome --- apart from citing that 225 candidates have made it to the 290-member Majlis on the first ballot and repeating the claim, probably inaccurate, that national turnout was 64%.

An EA reader, piecing together various accounts and drawing on one of the few detailed summaries --- in the "hard-line" Raja News --- offers this estimate of the affiliation of the 225 MPs:

48 Unity Front
  6 Islamic Constancy/Resistance Front
54 Joint affiliation with Unity Front and Islamic Constancy/Resistance Front
  2 Voice of the Nation
22 Reformists
88 "Independents" (which includes an unknown number of candidates of the Steadfastness Front)
 5 Religious Minorities

(This morning, Khabar Online offers the names of the winning candidates, and their shares of the overall vote, but does not offer any further information.)

For more on the factions, sse Iran Special: A Beginner's Guide to the Parliamentary Elections

Significance? Even if one puts the general label "pro-Supreme Leader" on the Unity Front and "pro-Ahmadinejad" on the Constancy/Resistance Front, this outcome --- at least in the numbers for the blocs --- is far from the clear victory for Ayatollah Khamenei that international media were proclaiming at the weekend. The victories for those candidates who, covering their political bases and raising their profile, ran for both of the rival factions almost matched those of the Unity Front.

And there is the "biggest" winner of all, the collection only known as "independents". For some reason, Raja News decided not to recognise the Steadfastness Front, linked to Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaei, as a separate faction. So we have no idea if that group has emerged as a significant bloc.

Nor can we resolve the rumour, spread widely before the election, that President Ahmadinejad's camp would try to "smuggle in" MPs by having them pose as independents, thus avoiding rejection by the Guardian Council.

I still think that, when this plays out, a "mish-mash" Parliament will be a victory for the Supreme Leader --- not because there is a dominant bloc in the Majlis, but because of the lack of one. He and his men can operate without the fear of strong opposition from that quarter.

But that projection is merely a glimpse beyond the muddle --- if the 2009 Presidential election lacked legitimacy, this one does not even offer the pretense of a defined outcome.