TEHERAN, March 1.-Thousands of cheering women carrying banners and placards gathered in the grounds of the Shah's marble palace after he had told the economic conference that women would be allowed to take part in parliamentary elections. The women, cheering and clapping, shouted "Long live our beloved Shah".
In January women voted for the first time when a referendum was held on the Shah's six-point plan for land reform, but their votes were described as "symbolic" and were not officially counted. Observers said then that the decision to allow women to vote was the biggest blow aimed by the Government at the religious mullahs, who have opposed participation by women in social affairs.
Women in clash with mullahs
The Times,
23 March 1963
TEHERAN, March 22.- A Muslim mullah and a woman were killed and 50 others injured when mullahs and women demonstrators clashed today at Tabriz, in Iran's Northern Province, near the Soviet border.
Reports reaching here said crowds of women hit out with their stiletto heels at mullahs and clerics who have been opposing the Government's plans for reforms, including granting votes to women. Many mullahs had their robes and turbans torn by the time police intervened to stop the fight. An announcement here said about 12 people - on both sides - had been arrested.
Voting without secrecy in Iran
The Times,
18 September 1963
TEHERAN, SEPT. 17 Amid no greater secrecy than accompanies, say, the purchase of train tickets at Waterloo station, Iranian men and women voted today for what is being called their revolutionary Parliament. Over the great plateaux and plains quiet reigned and there was no protest from any section of the population which considers the election a farce.
The counting of votes and calculation of percentages will in some places continue well into tomorrow. Asadullah Alam, the Prime Minister, has said that the Iranians prefer voting for principles rather than personalities and that the election poll would not equal that in the referendum early this year; but in Teheran today there seemed a fair turnout.
From 5 a.m. onwards neat middle-class women in western dresses and high-heeled shoes and poorer women still veiled came to the polling stations, self-possessed and obviously pleased to be voting for the first time. They mingled there with officials, workmen and bazaar tradesmen, there being no separation of the sexes as sometimes happens during voting in Muslim countries.
NAMES FILLED IN
Most voters arrived having already written on their ballot slips the names of the candidates they supported. Those who had not done so wrote in the names standing anywhere in the schools, factories, or other buildings which were the polling stations. At some places the names of candidates chosen at the approved congress held in Teheran before the election were posted on the walls to help the electors, but no lists were seen of opposition or independent candidates.
The voters arrived with ballot slips because they had been given them with voting cards when they registered last month. Two blank slips had been handed to each person, one for the Senate and the other for the Lower House. The slips were dropped today into separate boxes.
Illiterates asked someone to fill in names for them either at the polling station or elsewhere before they came. One workman when questioned said that his slip had been handed to him completed at the public works where he was employed.
Startling though the non-secrecy was to westerners, today's procedure was considered an improvement by people who had seen previous elections in Iran. Non-approved candidates seemed mere shadows outside some closed tent and it was a mystery how they could have made an impression; yet at Rey, for example, outside Teheran, the returning officials said that three or four candidates opposed the congress nominee for the one Lower House seat allocated.
