Iran religious, political hardliners face off in vote

Tehran: Iran's ruling political and religious hardliners will face off in a parliamentary election on Friday (Today), echoing a deepening rift in a conservative establishment grappling with economic sanctions over the country's disputed nuclear programme.

The election will by the first since the country's disputed presidential election in 2009, when bloody opposition and pro-democracy protests were stamped out by security forces.

This time round, reformist groups have said they will boycott voting, setting the stage for a straight contest between backers of Iran's most powerful figure and religious authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

The vote will set the balance of power ahead of the next presidential poll, scheduled for 2013.

Campaigners for both sides have been calling for a high turnout to show the country's legitimacy in the face of growing international isolation and the threat of an attack by Israel, provoked by Iran's nuclear work.

"The Iranian nation will slap the arrogant powers in the face harder than ever by its high turnout," Khamenei told a gathering on Wednesday.

"We should resist and make the enemies more envious of our will and to let them understand that they cannot confront us."

The West fears Iran is working on developing a nuclear bomb, but Tehran says the programme is for electricity generation and other peaceful purposes.

The two main hardline groups that are competing for the290-seat parliament are the United Front of Principlists, which includes Khamenei loyalists, and the Resistance Front that backs Ahmadinejad.

The political rift between the two leaders started when Ahmadinejad tried to supersede Khamenei in Iran's complex political hierarchy, in which the Supreme Leader holds the ultimate authority.

Analysts have said Ahmadinejad and his allies have been trying to undermine the central role of the clergy in politics by emphasising nationalist themes of Iranian history and culture in their speeches. (Reuters)