Iran Announces March Elections

Iran will hold elections for its 270-member Majlis, or parliament, on March 8, a senior official announced Saturday.

The official Islamic Republic News Agency, monitored in Nicosia, quoted Deputy Interior Minister Ali Reza Tabesh as saying that there would be “more political and social freedoms” before the poll.

Iranian politics is dominated by Islamic clerical associations. A small secular party that had been tolerated as token opposition was banned in 1994.