The 2012 Iranian parliamentary elections will take place in early March at a time of discords within the power elite and international pressure on the Islamic regime to suspend uranium enrichment. However, what makes these tightest elections ever held by the Islamic Republic even more uncommon is the fierce competition, for the first time, between two Islamic conservative and clerical factions who had in the past elections stood on the same side against their reformist rivals. Now that the reformists are sidelined due to the heavy clashes between them and the regime in the aftermath of the 2009 presidential elections, the conservatives are in a ferocious contest amongst themselves over legislative power as a stepping stone towards grabbing the executive power in the next presidential elections in June 2013.