Both elections are a battleground between hardliners already in power and moderate and pro-reform figures seeking a comeback.
Significantly, root-and-branch examinations reform figures strongly among ideas put forward by a number of leading thinktanks and policy advisers.
Two nonclerics who are pro-reform figures, Behzad Nabavi and Mohammad Reza Khatami, a brother of the president, were elected first and second deputy speakers.
Out in the open, major reform figures like Abdullah Nouri were brought to trial and sentenced to lengthy jail terms, only for others to carry the baton forward.
Since the new protests began, the pro-reform figures of the 2009 uprising, some of whom remain under house arrests, have been noticeably absent.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — A day after Iranian authorities began a mass trial of more than 100 government opponents, state television broadcast a chilling segment in which two defendants — both prominent reform figures — said they had "changed" since being arrested, and disputed widespread claims that their publicized confessions had been coerced through torture.
Although initial reports suggest that as few as 100 reformist candidates are among the 6,000 approved for the parliamentary elections by the Guardian Council, it is believed that some pro-reform figures may have been spared from disqualification because their allegiance has been unclear.
Iran's opposition movement is still reeling from a mass trial of reform figures that began on Saturday, in which well-known reformists were brought out to recite scripted confessions denouncing their former colleagues and declaring that there had been no fraud in the election.
The planned rally follows overnight raids on university dormitories in several Iranian cities and as two pro-reform figures were arrested.
"Two pro-reform figures, newspaper editor Saeed Laylaz and Hamid Reza Jalaipour, an activist and journalist, were arrested on Wednesday morning, reports said.
If the person is hesitant to reform, figure out what they care most about — the privilege of working from home, their bonus and put that at stake.
