TEHRAN, Iran -- As a 20-year-old firebrand, Hamidreza Jalai Pour sat in his jail cell in 1979, and listened to his fellow students chanting outside, as they waged their Islamic revolution on the streets. Since then, he has spent a second spell in jail -- this time at the hands of the same revolutionary government he fought to bring to power.

His three brothers were killed in Iran's long war with Iraq; his office was bombed by Iraqi forces. In the past 18 months alone, Jalai Pour, now editor of one of Iran's 35 daily newspapers, has had three of his publications shut by the police.

So, Jalai Pour speaks with the authority of someone who has seen more turbulent history than most. And rushing into his office on Friday afternoon, a few hours before the polls closed in Iran's parliamentary elections, he declared: "An avalanche is coming! This is really a new phenomenon."

The rocks from that avalanche have not yet hit the ground. With about 6,000 candidates, the results from the handwritten ballots stuffed into cardboard boxes on Friday could take nearly a week to tally. But Friday's elections for Iran's 290-seat parliament, or majlis, already seem likely to transform this country, with the hardcore conservatives losing their legislative majority to a dynamic new generation of liberal reformers.

Millions of Iranians converged on schools, mosques and even hotel lobbies to vote, in the freest elections the country has seen in decades. Throughout Friday, a Muslim holiday, the elections became a family outing, with generations walking to their neighboring voting station, tiny children in tow, and grandmothers in full black chador covering, treading shakily up stairs, resting on their grandchildren's arms.

Inside, the process was near chaos, with children helping their parents fill out the long ballot form, listing their pick among 400 candidates running for Tehran's 30 parliamentary seats. Friends sat on the floor, debating candidates and swapping the party candidate lists, which have been scattered on sidewalks, and passed through car windows, all week.

This has not been an election about candidates, however. Almost all those running are obscure figures, and since Iran's ruling mullahs, or clerics, permitted them just a one-week campaign, only a handful have emerged as recognizable leaders. Instead, two personalities have dominated this week's campaign -- and neither one is running: President Muhammad Khatami, and the far more conservative Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose authority is unimpeachable in Iran.

The painted election banners hanging throughout Tehran this week proclaim a range of bland election promises: job opportunities, security and freedom. And since most parties have adopted the same vague slogans, the main clue as to who represents what is whether Khatami's well-known portrait is painted alongside them. In reality, there is only one issue at stake: whether to loosen the rigid grip of Islamic law, as Khatami has attempted to do, against the ayatollah's will. Just one question pervades every discussion in Tehran's streets and restaurants, and in the city's sprawling bazaar: Whose side are you on?

"We are three generations, so we all think about different things," said Sara Asadi, 19, who stood in a pink nylon coat, next to her mother and grandmother, both dressed in black floor-length coats. "I've only heard about the revolution, while my mother and grandmother lived through it," she said. "Now, they are thinking about their social security, and I am thinking about how we are allowed to dress."

Does that mean her mother and grandmother will vote for the religious conservatives, I ask? At that moment, her mother shakes her head in furious denial, and whispers in my ear: "Khatami! Khatami!"

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.