TEHRAN – Electoral campaign for runoff parliamentary elections officially began Thursday morning, Ali-Reza Afshar, head of the Interior Ministry election commission, announced here on Wednesday.

The parliamentary candidates are allowed to campaign for one week.
The campaign will come to end at 8:00 local time next Thursday, he said.
“The campaign restrictions of the first round of the election are still binding,” Afshar added.
Parliament recently passed a law which prohibits the candidates from putting their pictures on posters or banners in election campaigning.
They are just allowed to print their pictures in the brochures, leaflets, cards, and their biographies.
He underlined that “alluring and threatening people” to have their votes is “illegal and Haram (religiously banned).”
There will be “electronic vote counting alongside hand counting in all constituencies with more than three seats in Majlis,” the official said.
“There was no problem in the electronic election software in the first round of elections,” Afshar boasted.
He expressed hope that with the “Guardian Council’s permission” the next presidential elections would be held electronically.
Majlis efficiency
“Efficiency of the next parliament” will be dependent on the competence of those who will be elected in the runoff election, Reza Talaii-Nik, the Moderation and Development Party general secretary, told reporters in a press conference quoted by Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).
Talaii-Nik said it is true that a fewer number of parliamentary seats are left but it doesn’t “downplay the importance of the second round of elections.”
He assured that his party will have an “active participation” in the runoff with the slogan of “development and justice”.
The party will cooperate with reformists and fundamentalists alike, Talaii-Nik added.
The sitting parliamentarian predicted that fundamentalists will obtain the majority of seats.
Goals and plans
Hossein Mar’ashi, director of the reformist election headquarters, said reformists will insist on their “goals and plans” that they pursued in the first round of election.
“We are seeking to form a powerful minority faction” in the next parliament “to help resolve the state’s problems,” he said.
Asked about the impending change of the interior minister, Mar’ashi said, “President (Mahmud Ahmadinejad) has the authority to change ministers, but… he should explain (his reasons) to the Supreme Leader, people, and Majlis.”
But there came no explanation up to now, he complained.
Asked about Majlis appointments, the former lawmaker said the headquarters “has not yet decided” on this issue.
Meanwhile Hedayat Aqaei, the spokesman for reformist faction in Tehran, predicted the number of reformist lawmakers in the next Majlis will reach 60