One key question is whether reformers will be given a chance at challenging in the elections.
Another key question is whether the opponents and supporters of President Ahmadi-nejad will duke it out at the polls.
In past years, the traditional conservatives and the Ahmadi-nejad crowd have buried their differences at election time to confront the reformists. But many expect the regime to block the reformists from running any large number of candidates, which might prompt the right side of the spectrum to split.
The Interior Ministry announced the election date Sunday. It said the date had already been reviewed and approved by the Council of Guardians. In some past elections, the ministry and the Guardians have brawled over the date.
The Majlis has 290 seats. In the last Majlis elections in 2008, the reformists emerged as only a rump force with 40-odd seats. The reformists held the majority from 2000 to 2004, but were then ousted by the conservatives.
While many reformists have complained that their leading figures were barred from the ballot in 2004 and 2008 by the Council of Guardians, there were still plenty of reformists allowed on the ballot so they could have won a majority if the voting public chose to vote reformist.
President Ahmadi-nejad will serve with the Majlis to be elected next year for a little more than one year before his second and final term is up and a new president is elected in the spring of 2013.
Speculation has already begun about candidates in 2013. Ahmadi-nejad’s former chief of staff, Esfandiar Rahim-Mashai, was asked Saturday if he would run. He refused to say. “Ask me six months before the election,” he told reporters.
Former President Moham-mad Khatami, meanwhile, called on the government to free all political prisoners and end house arrests to prepare the ground for “free and healthy” Majlis elections in which “everyone can safely participate as voters and candidates.”
