Word: roundness
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...land to poor families for 99 years and to allow them to build houses with government financial support. The couple signed up for the scheme and have already paid the equivalent of $60 to the government. "If it comes true, we'll definitely vote for Ahmadinejad in the next round, but we're not sure about majlis yet," says the 29-year old mother, Mrs. Pahlavani...
...Rallying the electorate against foreign enemies has been an important part of the conservatives' campaigning over the past week, citing the row over the publication of Prophet Muhammad cartoons in Europe, the third round of U.N. sanctions against Iran, and the conflict in Gaza. In a speech, the country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said all those who supported an election boycott - as some reformists whose candidates were barred from running had at first considered to - were "either fooled or supported by foreign interests...
...Lowering Sarkozy's profile in the campaign may have helped the right: First-round voting nationally showed leftists beating conservatives by 47.05% to 45.29% - a margin far closer than the tidal wave of protest that had been predicted in opinion polling. Little wonder, then, that Fillon and other conservative leaders applauded the initial outcome as "balanced," and denounced leftist claims that constituted a rebuke of Sarkozy as as "partisan politics that don't correspond to local realities...
...Still, local realities allowed Socialist-led majorities to capture city halls in first-round polling in France's third-largest city Lyon, as well as in Nantes, Rouen and Dijon. The left also posted dominant leads in Paris, Lille and Strasbourg, and was in tight races going into run-offs even in such traditional conservative bastions as Marseille and Toulouse. In many close runoff races next weekend, Socialist candidates appear more likely to gain the support of the centrist Modem party, which had once been a coalition partner of Sarkozy's UMP - although the centrists may demand a prohibitive price...
...French conservatives did score some significant victories in the initial round of voting: Former Prime Minister Alain Jupp?, for example, won the mayor's job in Bordeaux, just nine months after he suffered a stunning upset for the city's parliamentary seat - a loss that made him ineligible to serve in the national government. Fifteen of the 22 members of Fillon's cabinet of 33 who were on Sunday's municipal ballots either won first-round victories, or were in strong positions for the runoff. Still, the left appears to have done well by trading on the increasing unpopularity...