TEHRAN, 13 January 2004 — The future of reforms in Iran was hanging in the balance yesterday as embattled reformists loyal to the president fought a dramatic bid by conservatives to wrest absolute power over the Islamic republic.
Furious over a move to bar massive numbers of reformers from key parliamentary elections by the Guardians’ Council — an unelected political oversight body — 90 deputies kept up a symbolic sit-in at the Iranian Parliament.
But dashing hopes of a quick end to the crisis, the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei announced that he had no intention of immediately stepping into the fray.
And amid warnings his government could collapse under a wave of resignations, President Mohammad Khatami vowed he would assert his constitutional position as the regime’s No. 2 to reverse what one senior MP has branded a “coup d’etat”.
“Because these elections are so crucial, I hope that this time the president will act as he has promised,” warned the president’s younger brother Mohammad Reza Khatami, the disqualified head of Iran’s largest reform party.
“If we fail, the gap between the regime and society will widen,” said the head of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF). “This is a big danger for the regime.”
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said that Khamenei, Khatami and Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karoubi were “currently reflecting on the matter”, but the supreme leader later distanced himself from the crisis.
“Once all the legal steps have been exhausted, if we arrive at a sensitive situation which demands a decision, then there can be no doubt that I will intervene and give my opinion,” he was quoted as saying by state television.
The crisis erupted Sunday when it emerged that the conservative-run Guardians’ Council had disqualified thousands of candidates hoping to contest the Feb. 20 parliamentary election.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, on a visit to Tehran, warned Iran’s clerical leaders of potentially serious consequences for Iran-EU relations if the vote is perceived as being rigged by religious hard-liners.
Among those disqualified were more than 80 reformists currently holding seats in Iran’s Parliament, or Majlis, which for the past four years has been held by moderates mandated to shake up the way the 25-year-old Islamic republic is run.
The 12-member Guardians’ Council — a bastion of the religious right that has consistently blocked reforms — also barred the majority of candidates from the IIPF.
The bulk of those on the blacklist were found in violation of an article in the electoral law stipulating a commitment to Islam and the position of Khamenei as supreme leader, reformists said.
