TEHRAN, 17 January 2004 — A senior conservative cleric said yesterday a controversial blacklist barring large numbers of Iranian reformers from standing in key elections next month would be “carefully” revised, but the main reform party leader vowed there would be no compromise in protests by furious MPs.

In a Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani stood by the right of the Guardian Council — an unelected watchdog which screens all laws and candidates for public office — to carefully weed out would-be MPs who did not respect Islam.

“Everywhere around the world there are boundaries, and in our constitution there are restrictions on anyone who wants to be elected,” he said.

The cleric is a former member of the Guardian Council and currently sits on the Expediency Council — Iran’s top political arbitration body, which like the Guardian Council, is also controlled by conservatives.

On Sunday, the Guardian Council drew allegations that it was trying to rig the Feb. 20 parliamentary elections after it disqualified almost half of the 8,157 people seeking to stand.

Most on the blacklist were reformers, among them some 83 incumbent MPs and some of the movement’s most prominent figures. This prompted embattled reformist President Mohammad Khatami to threaten he would lead a mass resignation of ministers, MPs and provincial governors.

On Wednesday, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei intervened, ordering the 12 members of the Guardian Council to be less stringent, particularly in the cases of incumbent MPs.

“The Guardian Council is obliged to act according to the comments of the supreme leader,” Ayatollah Emami-Kashani told worshipers, but added: “The Guardian Council will be very careful.”

The head of Iran’s main reformist party and brother of the president vowed barred incumbent deputies would not compromise even if they were eventually approved.

Mohammad Reza Khatami, leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), said the thousands of other disqualified candidates must also be allowed to stand, and said a parliamentary sit-in — now in its sixth day — would go on.

“This sit-in has only one request, and that is to have an election based on the law. We will not compromise on that,” said the IIPF leader, who is himself among those disqualified.

“Even if all sitting MPs are allowed to stand but people outside the Majlis are not, we will continue,” he said, as scores of disgruntled MPs continued to occupy the Parliament building in central Tehran — together with family members and screaming children playing in the building.

“This is a matter of principle,” he said, adding that MPs would begin a hunger strike next week.

The Guardian Council is due to make a final ruling at the end of the month, and a definitive list of candidates is due to be released around Feb. 12.

The continuing sit-in comes despite an appeal from Khatami for MPs to end the protest and focus their energies on the complex appeals process.