Abstract
The 2012 parliamentary elections in Iran—the first since the disputed presidential election of 2009—have come and gone with some fanfare. In some respects, the story of the elections in the Western press was pre-written: The elections would be a battleground for the ongoing power struggle between Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Mahmud Ahmadinejad; people were going to stay home in
protest; reformists were going to be shut out of participation; and the system was going to rig the election once again.