The hard-liners’ victory in Iran’s parliamentary election Feb. 21 seemed clearly predictable, but this did not stop them from celebrating and bragging about how they delivered a big blow to the Reformists.
Perhaps they still felt the sting of previous elections. In 2013, after Reformist-backed Hassan Rouhani’s presidential victory, the Reformists and moderates set their sights on also taking over the parliament in 2016 — and they succeeded. They won all 30 seats in Tehran province, which was a major disappointment to hard-liners and conservatives, who were striving to obstruct Rouhani’s attempt to ink a nuclear deal with world powers.
