Young Iranians gave out flowers and sweets in Tehran's Revolution Square on Sunday in celebration of the overwhelming mandate for change given to Mohammad Khatami in his presidential election win. "Iran has successfully passed another test and a new era has begun in the shining history of the Islamic Republic," the 54-year-old cleric said. "All forces, all thoughts, opinions and skills" are now needed to move forward. The English-language Tehran Times reflected the giddiness among many Iranians, proclaiming, "Khatami's Overwhelming Victory: Clear Mandate for Reforms." The new president takes office in August. About 29-million people out of a total electorate of 33-million voted Friday; of those, 20.7-million voted for Khatami. His nearest rival, Ali Akbar Nateq-Nouri, the powerful speaker of parliament, won 7.2-million votes, which many analysts saw as a rebuff to the elderly radical clerics in the holy city of Qom who backed him. Yet outgoing President Hashemi Rafsanjani denied Sunday that the huge vote for Khatami could be considered a protest of the system of strict controls that govern social life and freedom of speech. "The majority of our young people would like to be compatible with the values of the revolution and Islamic principles," he said. Asked if such principles could allow people to read and entertain freely in their homes, he said: "Some of these requests are not possible to meet." However, some Iranians were already predicting that the size of Khatami's mandate would embolden young people to reject the system. "The Khatami vote shows they want change quickly and both sides could get aggressive. There could be a backlash from the revolutionary police forces," a psychologist said. A Tehran mother reported that her 8-year-old returned from school Sunday saying the girls had spent the morning discussing when they were going to rip off their headscarves. In Iran, girls have to wear Islamic cover from the age of nine. However, as the celebration rallies by students began, police were active in maintaining dress and behavior codes. In one incident Sunday night, a woman was seen being stopped in her car and taken away for wearing makeup. The apparatus that controls public morals in Iran is huge, involving thousands of regime loyalists. Private morals are the domain of the civil police, but other volunteer squads, such as the Bassij, the force which fought the Iran-Iraq war, are also involved. Another prominent force is the Elimination of Vice and Propagation of Virtue Squad, and its detention center in north Tehran was busy as usual Sunday. Two mixed-sex parties had been raided several days ago, and in the tiny room that functioned as a reception area, well-to-do women dressed in heavy Islamic cover stood in line to plead with a scowling police sergeant to allow them to deliver food parcels to their relatives inside. "My son, Mohammad, was arrested last Thursday when he went to a goodbye party for a girl leaving for Dubai. . . . When he comes out, we are going to do everything to get him out to Canada," said one woman. A group of relatives said 40 teenagers had been arrested at one party. "We haven't had any news of (my son) since Thursday, when they forced him on to a bus," said a woman wearing a chador. Usually, families are asked to pay hefty fines to secure the release of their relatives. It is unlikely that Khatami will be able, or even want, to stop such activities by the moral police forces. He has to work with a parliament dominated by conservatives and also with the Guardians' Council, a body of traditional right-wing clerics. Poles consider new constitution WARSAW, Poland _ Poles voted in a referendum Sunday on whether to adopt a new constitution that is backed by the ruling ex-Communists and strongly opposed by the right-leaning opposition. A television exit poll showed 56.8 percent support for the new constitution, against 43.2 against. Turnout was 39.8 percent of Poland's 28-million voters. The final result will be published late today or Tuesday. The constitution, designed to enshrine Poland's democratic transformation since the 1989 fall of Communism, was drafted by the ruling ex-Communist Democratic Left Alliance. The Solidarity trade union and its rightist allies had urged voters to reject the document, saying it failed to reflect Poland's Christian traditions and safeguard national sovereignty. Italians vote on separatism MILAN, Italy _ Italy's separatist Northern League held an unofficial referendum Sunday on forming a breakaway northern state. The league's leader, Umberto Bossi, said the exercise would be a "punch in the teeth" for politicians in Rome and "a step forward on the path to freedom for the north." The league staged the unofficial plebiscite in 11 of Italy's 20 regions, setting up tents at 13,000 sites as polling stations for people to vote on its drive for a "federal, independent and sovereign republic of Padania." Results of the ballot, which has no legal value, are due to be announced today. "These things are not serious," Prime Minister Romano Prodi told reporters in the northern city of Bologna. Politics "is not one big game." Ecuadorans endorse president QUITO, Ecuador _ President Fabian Alarcon, who replaced Ecuador's ousted leader in February, won a powerful endorsement on Sunday in a national referendum on his interim government. Alarcon won the approval of 74 percent of the voters, according to exit polls. Former President Abdala Bucaram, known as El Loco for his erratic behavior, was removed from office by Congress for "mental incapacity." His government was plagued by corruption charges and was the target of massive street protests. Voters also backed Congress' decision to remove the Bucaram from office, with 65 percent supporting the decision and 28 percent opposing it. Final official results will be known within 10 days. _ Information from the Associated Press and Reuters was used in this report.