Iran hits back at criticism over elections

Iran angrily hit back Tuesday at international criticism of its parliamentary polls, won by religious conservatives after most candidates in the Islamic republic's pro-reform camp were barred from standing.
Foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said complaints from arch-enemy the United States and top trading partner the European Union that the polls were "flawed" amounted to "unacceptable and interventionist comments".
With the vote count from Friday's Majlis elections looking set to drag on into early Wednesday, results showed a likely coalition of hard-liners, conservatives and centrists on the cusp of winning a majority from the first round.
Counting was still going on in the capital Tehran, which returns 30 deputies to the 290-seat Majlis. But results from more than two-thirds of the ballots counted showed right-wingers set to win around 160 seats.
In contrast, reformists have managed to win less than 45 seats.
Some 58 seats will have to be contested in a second round, but with most reformists already eliminated before the polls, the second round of voting is certain to produce an even more solid conservative majority.
Friday's voting was overshadowed by the mass blacklisting of reformists by the Guardians Council, a hard-line political watchdog that screens candidates for public office and vets laws for their compliance with the constitution and Islamic law.
The United States said the polls did not meet "international standards" and were "deeply flawed", given the blacklist. And EU foreign ministers called them a "setback for democracy".
But the foreign ministry here said the critics were "not informed of the realities and the complexities of developments underway in Iran".
And Gholam-Ali Hadad-Adel, head of the conservative Builders of an Islamic Iran - a right-wing bloc poised to take all of Tehran's seats - told reporters the EU should avoid making "premature judgements".
Top regime figures had called on Iranians to vote en masse to deal a blow to the United States, with which Iran has not had diplomatic relations since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Turnout became a key issue in the polls, with many viewing participation as an indication of public support for the regime.
But the dispute is unlikely to be more than a temporary distraction from the result - a victory for conservatives, an end to Iran's often traumatic experiment with political and social reforms, and the isolation of Khatami.