How well are hard-liners running Tehran?

Conservatives say that the next step in regaining popular control of government came in February 2004, when conservatives - after more than 2,500 reform-minded candidates were barred from running - won parliamentary elections. They hope to complete the triple crown by winning the presidential election coming up in June.

But that trajectory has not been trouble free. Already hard-line efforts by parliament to separate men and women on university campuses, and impose an even stricter dress code, have been rebuffed by the public.

"There is a faction in Iran - call them the Taliban - whose cultural view is closed, who do not believe in freedom of expression or participation," says Mostafa Tajzadeh, a Khatami adviser. "If they thought this [city council] was doing well, their first presidential candidate would be [mayor] Ahmadinejad, but he is fourth."

Mr. Tajzadeh notes that the hard- liners promised to repair all the streets in 45 days, "but never in Tehran's history has it been this bad." He adds, "Our society and our people do not believe they can solve the big issues of the country."

In a city where Iran's armed and security forces control one-sixth of the turf, good relations are key. The military was at odds with the reformist administration of Gholam Hossein Karbaschi, the popular mayor in office eight years. He nevertheless beautified the city, multiplying green spaces 15-fold, and raised city revenue by a factor of 30. But Karbaschi was convicted in 1998 on corruption charges leveled by hard-liners - in a case largely seen as a surrogate trial of the reformist policies of Khatami.

"There is no evidence of success for fundamentalists in the city council," says Ayatollah Mohsen Kadivar, a dissident religious scholar. "Every day in my car, I hit potholes in the street, and say: 'What a bad mayor we have.' "

THE mayor "has had some good operations," but they have not been successful enough to be applied on a bigger scale, says Saeed Laylaz, a political analyst. "Not even conservatives think [this model] should be extended to the whole country."

Indeed, some argue that the Tehran example of hard-line leadership may be hastening that faction's demise.

"Even when the radicals take power, they must use the same slogans as Karbaschi: reconstruction, reform of institutions, and value to cultural issues," says Mohammad Atrianfar, a city counselor in the Karbaschi era, and editor of the reform-leaning Shargh newspaper.

"It has reached a point where they realize their survival depends on their distance from their beliefs," says Mr. Atrianfar. "In Iran, extremists on both the left and right are getting close to their death, [This is a] last gasp."

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