TEHRAN, Iran — It was a case of mending political fences, Iranian-style.

President Ahmadinejad, the former Revolutionary Guard commando who had unsettled Iran’s clerical establishment with his populist talk, met with Shiite Muslim clergy in the southern province of Bushehr ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections Thursday. His message: Government largesse would continue to flow their way.

“Since the beginning of the revolution, it has been said that the government’s contributions to the clergymen and mosques makes them part of the government,” he said. “On the contrary, the contributions are the duty of the government.”

The clergy is one of the key constituencies that political groups are busy reaching out to ahead of an election that some analysts believe will be a barometer of the country’s domestic and international direction.

Iran’s electoral politics differ starkly from those of the West. Thousands of largely liberal-minded reform candidates were barred from running in the election, by the Guardian Council, a body of clerics and jurists that vets candidates for loyalty to the country’s Islamic system. The Council later reinstated 1,000 candidates.

“My quest for a parliamentary seat in Iran ends today,” wrote one barred candidate in a recent e-mail, asking that his name not be published. “The Guardian Council will not allow my name — along with more than 200 other candidates from (my) district of Tehran — on the ballot on the ground that concrete proofs could not be made with regard to my belief in Islam and the Islamic Republic.'”

Within Iran’s restrictive political environment, there is still some lively debate and fierce competition between rival groups. Compared with other Middle East countries, Iran’s competitive political culture resembles a representative democracy, with campaign tours around the countryside, spirited attacks between opposing camps and rhetoric tailored to calibrate public expectations.

“Now we have to prepare ourselves to be a strong minority,” a spokesman of the reformist National Trust grouping, Rasoul Montajebnia, said, according to Iranian news agencies. “Expecting to occupy the majority of seats is not a realistic vision.”

The stifled reformists have by and large been reduced to promoting well-known figures such as former President Khatami rather than crafting a platform and calling for increased social liberty to appeal to middle-class voters.