Conservatives claim Iran election win

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Iranian conservatives have said they captured most of the 82 parliamentary seats up for grabs in Friday's runoff election.

Conservatives took about 80 percent of the parliamentary seats, official Mohammad Forouzandeh told the country's semi-official FARS news agency.

"The final results are not in yet, but so far, the fundamentalists have 53 seats, Reformists have 12 and the rest went to Independent candidates with fundamentalist tendencies," he said.

FARS also published the names of the 11 winners of the Tehran constituency. Ten were conservatives and one was a reformist.

Iran's official news agency, IRNA, reported that election results from 47 out of 54 had been finalized, and that the final count would be ready Saturday night.

IRNA said voter participation in the second round was 8 percent higher than the second round of the previous election.

Last month's first round, in which 204 parliamentary races were settled, was a decisive victory for the hard-line conservatives.

The reformists suffered a setback before the March election, when 70 percent of their candidates were disqualified. Iran's conservative Guardian Council screened candidates and disqualified about 1,700 it deemed unsuitable. They were predominantly reformists.

The Guardian Council is an unelected body of six high clerics appointed by supreme religious leaders and six lawyers nominated by the head of the judiciary branch.

Iran is scheduled to hold its presidential election in the spring of 2009. Ahmadinejad has not announced whether he will run for a second term. E-mail to a friend

CNN's Shirzad Bozorgmehr contributed to this report.

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