"An avalanche is coming!"

With the first reformist parliament almost a certainty, Khatami could have a real shot at a sweeping reform program, without being blocked by the legislators.

But it is not yet time to bury the Islamic revolution.

Almost every law passes through the 12 mullahs appointed by Ayatollah Khamenei to sit on Iran's Guardian Council. That key body has veto powers, including over crucial issues that the new parliament might want to pass later this year, like allowing unmarried men and women to touch each other in public, or trying to establish ties with the United States.

The council vetted every candidate who registered for these elections, and banned about 500 from running, including the newspaper editor, Jalai Pour. "They said I was not loyal enough to Islam," he said, "but the real reason was, I was attacking the conservatives, and selling 300,000 newspapers a day."

What the younger, hipper legislators might confront once they start their new jobs in parliament could be found Friday afternoon, in the courtyard of Tehran University. There, tens of thousands of people gathered on the ground in the sun, for the weekly outdoor prayer session.

In an hour-long mix of inspirational lecturing and a pep rally, Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi, one of the Guardian Council's senior members, stirred the audience with shouts of "Death to USA! Down with USA!" The chanting rose through the crowd in a crescendo, amplified through the loudspeakers strung along the campus grounds and down the neighborhood streets.

"Clinton has said the Guardian Council is against the reformers," shouted Yazdi, and then addressed President Clinton directly: "You think you still have the power over the world? That period is past! Since the revolution, no one has allowed foreigners to come interfere in Iran's affairs!" he said, while the crowd picked up the chant again: "Death to USA! Down with USA!"

Whatever the changes in Iran, said Yazdi, the death order, or religious fatwa, against writer Salman Rushdie would remain in place. Since it was ordered by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, "it cannot be broken," he said, "and I hope it will be carried out."

But aside from the fiery talk, political analysts in Tehran all agree that the conservatives are on the defensive, cornered by a huge new wave against fundamentalism, which brought Khatami to power in 1997, and threw out several conservative city council members last year.

Partly, a deep disillusionment has arisen due to unemployment and inflation. More crucial, Iran's population is among the youngest in the world: 45 percent of Iranians are younger than 14, and most people have no memory of the revolution. Instead, they are wired to the Internet, and are among the Middle East's most educated and literate youth -- ironically, a byproduct of the Islamic government's public programs.

Perhaps Khatami's clearest achievement in three years is to allow Iran's scores of newspapers -- including four English-language Tehran dailies -- to criticize the government in ways that were unimaginable a few years ago. And since many Tehranis read several newspapers a day, editors like Jalai Pour became key players in Friday's elections, even though several were barred from running for office.

"The fact that we are publishing today, on election day, is a sign that things have changed," said Jalai Pour. "Four months ago, I did not think we would make it."

Jalai Pour's first newspaper, Jame-ah, was shut by the government in late 1998, after Jalai Pour printed a front-page photograph showing a group of men exercising in a Tehran park. "They said we were showing them dancing." The staff regrouped immediately, and published an identical paper under another name. Last September, Jalai Pour arrived for work to find police, who shut the paper and arrested him, holding him for one month on security charges.

Again, the staff published a replacement paper, which lasted a few months, until it was closed by the police. The current version -- a 20-page hard-hitting critique of the conservatives -- has survived four months. But Jalai Pour is taking no chances. He has started a "spare tire" newspaper, as he calls it: a financial daily, which he doubts the conservatives will target, and which can step in to replace his main newspaper, if it is shut.

"You have to understand that this is still a big change," he says. "If you had come here even two years ago, I would not even dare shake your hand. That would be forbidden," he says, and then sees me to the door, and stretches out his hand.

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