We read in the literature on the contemporary Iranian politics that the main obstacles preventing formation of democracy in Iran are institutional and structural. This is the case at the local level as well, where structural factors such as gender, ethnicity, cultural norms, religious beliefs and ideological orientations affect the capacity of the citizens of the local communities to participate in the local political discourse and in the local governance. For a long time, these obstacles combined with institutional factors rooted in the ideological formation and practice of these institutions had excluded part of the population from the political process in general and the electoral process in particular. Now, more than a decade after the first local elections in 1999 we can raise the question whether or not local elections and local councils unleashed new political and cultural forces that challenge these impediments. The first question to be raised is to what extent have the local elections and local councils been able to make a change in the content of political discourse embedded in these institutional, structural, ideological and cultural barriers? The second question is, through what means the changes in the content of the political discourse at the local level have taken place. I shall argue that local elections and municipality councils have created a sense of intellectual and political agency that willingly, or unwillingly, consciously or unconsciously surpass old barriers and shape an inclusive democratic public space that seems to have empowered the ability of citizens to influence the local and national political discourse. This paper aims to analyse the elements contributing to this new intellectual and political agency and asses the extent of their impact on the local and national political discourse since 1999. The paper deals with the emergence of a group of intermediary intellectuals and political activists who have played a decisive role in changing the cultural and political environment of the two provinces of Khuzestan and Bousher and in doing so have created a lively public arena in which local and national cultural and political matters are carefully and rationally debated. The analysis of the position of the local publications, daily newspapers, weekly magazines and books through which the local intellectuals and political agents express their views, ideas, arguments to construct or define their political identities, form solidarities, formulate strategies and tactics towards collective actions, is another task of this paper.