UK Only Article:
standard article
Issue:
Battle lines
Fly Title:
Iran
Rubric:
A boost for reform, but a long way still to go
Location:
TEHRAN
Main image:
20160305_MAP003_0.jpg
THE clerics disqualified the candidates, but they could not disqualify the people. So long were the queues outside many polling stations that Iran’s election commission postponed closing five times. Secular Iranians with pink hairdos stood in line waiting to vote against the mullahs. When a self-important hardline politician tried to queue-jump, they booed him to the back of the line.
In Jamaran, the Tehran district where Ayatollah Khomeini once berated western Satans, citizens cheered the architects of Iran’s overtures to the West as they came to vote. Muhammad Zarif, the foreign minister who negotiated the nuclear deal, got polite applause. A former president, Muhammad Khatami, who is perhaps Iran’s most popular politician despite being banned from ...
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