Ali Larijani United Front of Principlists Ali Larijani United Front of Principlists The parliamentary election for the 9th Islamic Consultative Assembly, or Majlis, were held in Iran on Friday, 2 March 2012 with a second round on 4 May 2012 in those 65 districts where no candidate received 25% or more of the votes cast.

The first disagreement with the government was the vote of no confidence and dismissal of then Interior Minister, Ali Kordan, just three months after the opening of the new parliament.

Former president Mohammad Khatami demanded that political prisoners be freed and that former presidential candidates Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi be released from house arrest as a precondition for his movements participation.

Since his call went unheeded Ali Mohammad-Gharibani, head of the Reformist Front Coordination Council, said: "Despite efforts...to create an appropriate election climate, unfortunately more restrictions have been imposed.

According to Iran's Interior Ministry, the election process will be managed by some 850,000 observers in 47,000 polling stations and 1,000 constituencies across the country.

According to Aljazeera commentators, the number of rejections—including 33 sitting members of parliament[15]—can be attributed primarily to stricter educational requirements, and the narrowing of what is considered politically acceptable by the Guardian Council.

In addition candidate hopefuls may have been disqualified for affiliation with leftist organisations, the reformist camp, or even President Ahmadinejad.

[16] According to Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times, "there are no real political parties in Iran, only murky, shifting alliances of political figures,[10]" but according to Al Jazeera, the vote is a contest between the United Front of Principlists, who support Supreme Leader Khamenei, and the Front of Islamic Revolution Stability, which backs Ahmadinejad.

[18] According to the IranPolitik, the results were:[19] According to Mizan Online, the official news agency of Iranian Judiciary, 182 were conservative, 13 were reformer and 88 were independent (excluding 5 religious minority members and 2 vacant seats).

Given the overlap of candidacy lists, the share of each group might be claimed more or less than what is in the table, which shows the results out of 225 confirmed seats.

According to a statement issued on the Web site of the Foreign Ministry, by turning out in droves, Iranians "especially in this sensitive historical era, have shown that, despite all of the conspiracies, pressures, and sanctions, and the bleak portrait painted by the media of global arrogance, they will continue defending independence and the national interest".

[10]However, the foreign journalist Laura Secor found a polling station in Tehran (Hosseiniyeh Ershad) where she had always seen long lines of voters in previous elections, nearly empty this year.

Liberals, reformists and youth groups that led the protests are virtually absent from the parliamentary ballots after relentless crackdowns and arrests.

Conservatives – now left without a unifying foe – have splintered into various factions either backing or rejecting Ahmadinejad for daring to challenge Khamenei and the ruling clerics.