Eurasia Press & News
TEHRAN (FNA) Registration for March 14 parliamentary elections opened on Saturday throughout Iran, with potential candidates set to vie for 290 seats in the legislature including a politically important 30 in the capital Tehran.The legislative power is currently dominated by conservatives, including the Abadgaran (Builders of Development) party, who support President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The opposition has however formed a grand coalition of reformist and moderate factions headed by two former presidents – Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani – to confront the Ahmadinejad wing.
A victory in the parliamentary elections would not only be a comeback for the reformists but also prepare the ground for wining the next presidential elections in 2009.
Some 43.7 million people over the age of 18 are eligible to go to the polls, out of a population of 70 million.
More than 45,000 inspectors have been appointed by the Interior Ministry to supervise the 207 polling stations nationwide.
If victorious in the parliamentary polls the reformist-moderate coalition plans to forward Khatami as a challenger to Ahmadinejad in the 2009 presidential elections.
