TEHRAN: Iranian students, a reliable touchstone for assessing public opinion in the country, are displaying apathy towards the Feb 20 elections to the "majlis", Iran's 290-seat parliament. A low turn-out, fuelled by disenchantment with the political process, seems on the cards.

"The latest independent polling surveys suggest that in the parliamentary election the participation rate of people in Tehran will be 38 per cent and the national average will be 45 to 50 per cent," conceded Dr Mohammad Reza Khatami, the secretary-general of the Islamic Participation Party, the biggest and the most powerful reformist party, and President Mohammad Khatami's brother.

Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, spoke of the need for an election that would be "healthy, free, lawful and with high turn-out of zealous people" when during a tour he stopped at the town of Qazvin, west of Tehran, and addressed a local gathering.

In the university campuses however students criticize the Ayatollah's speeches. "Why doesn't he register himself as a candidate for the next election and guarantee the healthy and high turn-out," asked 21-year-old Ahmad Husseini with a smile. Husseini, who studies mining engineering in the Amirkabir university, represents a sizeable fraction of campus reaction.

A recent survey carried out in the Amirkabir university campus indicates that around 40 per cent of the students are unlikely to vote. Of the rest, around 15 per cent said they would, but only with a view to helping their chances of employment after graduation.

Youth like Rouzbeh Riyazi, who at 21 is among the elected student leaders in the university, are dismayed by the barring of reformist candidates by the Council of Guardians - a conservative supervisory body composed of six experts in Islamic law, called "mujtahids", and six civil lawyers. Although Iran's sixth "majlis", elected in early 2000, has seen the reformists well represented, the hardline Council of Guardians has blocked the efforts of the reform-minded - those allied with President Mohammad Khatami.

The Council plays a controversial role in the election process via its power of "approbatory supervision". Under Article 99 of the constitution, this is the means by which the council vets candidates for elected office, and annuls or even changes election results. Legislation introduced by the Khatami government in August 2002 was intended to reduce the Council's role in elections. In a catch-22 however, the Council must approve all legislation and had rejected the new election legislation.

It is a situation that worries many, within and outside the student community. "Nobody can be sure there will be no implosion in Iran," Kamran Ahmadzadeh, a self-employed building contractor, told IPS. "Reformists have occupied the majority of the parliament in the past four years but we have witnessed big and small riots in the same period."

Yet Lila Zirvandi, a medical student, sees a vote as possibly preventing such an implosion.-Dawn/The InterPress News Service.