TEHRAN, 5 February 2004 — Despite efforts by Iran’s leadership, no breakthrough was seen yesterday in the crisis sparked by the elimination of more than 2,000 candidates for the Feb. 20 elections by the country’s hard-line clergy.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on state television yesterday that parliamentary elections should be held as scheduled on Feb. 20.
Khamenei gave a clear rejection to reformist Interior Minister Mussavi Lari, who himself, his ministry and the majority of the MPs insisted upon a postponement and threatened not to hold the elections and even to resign if no grounds were prepared for what many considered free and competitive elections.
Khamenei added that it would be illegal and even un-Islamic for officials refuse to fulfill their duties or resign.
To date, 125 MPs, than 10 cabinet members and 27 governors have already resigned or threatened to resign over the crisis.
Government spokesman Abdullah Ramezanzadeh refrained yesterday from replying to questions of whether ministers and governors would still resign after Khamenei’s speech.
On Tuesday, President Mohammad Khatami, Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karrubi and judiciary head Mahmud Hashemi-Shahrudi met with Khamenei to break the logjam, which has become the most serious political crisis in the 25 years of the country’s post-revolutionary history.
Observers had predicted that Khamenei would come out against a postponement but doubt that the issue was raised in Tuesday’s meeting as President Khatami and Karrubi have always been against postponing the elections.
The president and the speaker instead want at least a revision of the ban, and the government was hopeful of reaching a compromise.
Khamenei, who constitutionally has the final say on all state affairs and hence is the key official to settle the dilemma, further denied foreign press reports of a deadlock in the election process and said “since the 1979 Islamic revolution the people have broken many of these so-called deadlocks.”
“Such disputes are nothing new and every dispute has a solution,” Khamenei said while praising both Khatami and the Guardian Council for having resisted the pressures.
Both Khatami and Khamenei are in a delicate situation. Deciding in favor of conservatives would severely harm the country’s trend toward reform — supporting the MPs would put the Islamic system in question.
Speaker Karrubi told state-television yesterday that efforts to defuse tensions have been satisfactory. Ramezanzadeh also told reporters after a Cabinet session yesterday that the Tuesday meeting produced general agreement on reaching a solution to the standoff between reformists and hard-liners by today.
The MPs however vowed once again on Tuesday to boycott elections and further called on Khatami’s government not to “bow to disgrace” by holding what they termed “illegal” polls.
The news agency IRNA reported that the MPs would end later in the day their 24-day sit-in in Parliament and issue a final statement after a meeting President Khatami.
Neither the president nor the interior minister spoke to reporters after the Cabinet session, with Khatami leaving quickly by limousine and Lari slipping out the back door of the presidential office.
Observers believe that Khatami and Karrubi will eventually try to persuade reformist MPs who have been approved or are waiting to be approved to participate in the elections and break their solidarity with the rejected candidates.
Another dilemma is the debate over the budget bill which requires the presence of the resigned MPs.
About one third of the Parliament, 125 reformist MPs, have submitted their resignations to protest the bans on 2,000 mostly reformist candidacies in Feb. 20 elections. The bans were imposed by conservative clergy on the Guardian Council.
