Persian Voting Begins Next Tuesday

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26605, 15 December 1951, Page 7

Persian Voting Begins Next Tuesday

(N.Z.P.A. —Reuter—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) TEHERAN, December 13. The Persian Government announced to-day that the national elections will begin on Tuesday.

The Communists are expected to make their biggest bid since 1946 to win Majlis (Lower House) seats under one guise or another. Only about 500,000 of Persia’s 16,000,000 will vote.

The casting of the ballot will take two or three weeks. The first voting will be in the Communist-tinged northern provinces. These include Azerbaijan, where the Soviet puppet regime was overthrown just five years ago.

The northern provinces on the Russian border are hotbeds of the anti-Mussadiq Tudeh (Communist) Party, now outlawed, but active even in Teheran.

The Communists are reported to be campaigning under false party labels. The new Majlis is to be elected for a two-year term starting on February 21. The voting opens on the day the Majlis decided upon during Dr. Mussadiq’s absence in the United States last month.

The elections originally were set to start on November 21. With Dr. Mussadiq in Washington the Majlis voted to delay them to December 18. Dr. Mussadiq demanded, and got, authority on November 25; after his return, to hold the elections “immediately,” but the arrangements took time.

The announcement of the election to-day came as pro-Government crowds demonstrated outside the Majlis on the fourth anniversary of the reoccupation of the Azerbaijan province, after the withdrawal of Soviet troops. For four hours 30,000 Nationalist supporters taunted 15 anti-Mussadiq deputies and a number of newspaper editors who have taken refuge inside the Majlis under the rule of sanctuary. The crowds carried banners, one of which said “Long live Mussadiq, leader of the Middle East.” Inside the Majlis the deputies held a secret session. Opposition Deputies refused to discuss Government guarantees for their safety if they would end their “stay-in strike,” saying that the subject could not be taken up while the demonstration was on. Police and troops stood by outside, but the crowds eventually dispersed without incident.