Iran to hold 2nd round of parliamentary elections

Iran will hold a second round of parliamentary elections on Friday to decide 65 seats still outstanding in its 290-member legislature following a March 2 first round. Conservative MPs of various stripes easily dominated in the first round, meaning the parliament's political stance is unlikely to change significantly from the previous legislature. But with half of them new faces, it will take until after the inauguration of the next parliament, at the end of this month, to see how that conservative force is configured. It appears, though, that the very little support President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad holds in the current parliament will be eroded further. But the main contest going on behind the scenes in the legislature is a battle for the position of parliamentary speaker. Outgoing speaker Ali Larijani, who won his seat in the holy city of Qom in the first round, has the support of his United Conservative Front supporters to return to the post. He faces competition from Gholam Ali Hadad Adel, who was speaker before him and who is a close adviser to the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Hadad Adel easily won his seat in Tehran in the first round. According to figures given by officials, turnout was 64 percent in the first round. They presented that as an electoral success following the violent protests that broke out after the 2009 disputed re-election of Ahmadinejad.