TEHRAN, 6 February 2004 — A compromise to resolve Iran’s election dispute has failed because of interference by a hard-line body, Iran’s deputy speaker said yesterday.

Mohammad Reza Khatami said his Islamic Iran Participation Front, the country’s largest reform group, would maintain its boycott of the parliamentary elections.

“The compromise has failed. The Guardian Council has interfered after the Intelligence Ministry approved 600 candidates who were previously disqualified,” Reza Khatami, disqualified from seeking reelection, told reporters.

On Wednesday, Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, ordered the Intelligence Ministry to review the list of disqualified candidates, ending weeks of a political standoff between the Guardian Council and reformists.

Mohsen Mirdamadi, another disqualified lawmaker, said that the Intelligence Ministry was to provide the list to the Guardian Council “as a legal formality,” and the council was to forward that list to the Interior Ministry “without any intervention.” But despite that order from Khamenei, the Guardian Council looked over the list and approved only 51 of the 600, said Mirdamadi, head of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee.

“Against the leader’s order, the Guardian Council has interfered. This is part of the council’s strange interpretation of the order,” Mirdamadi told reporters.

He said the Intelligence Ministry had stopped reviewing the disqualifications after the intervention.

Khatami, President Mohammad Khatami’s brother, said the president informed Khamenei of the compromise’s failure.

“The previous trend has continued,” Reza Khatami said. “The Feb. 20 elections will not be legal and free. My party will not participate in this election.”

“This failure damages the whole country, not a particular group. The next Parliament won’t be democratic, but it doesn’t mean that democracy has totally failed in Iran,” Reza Khatami said.

Khamenei’s order on Wednesday was initially considered a victory for reformists in their fights with hard-liners.

The Guardian Council, which is appointed by Khamenei, has disqualified more than 2,400 reformist lawmakers and politicians from the elections and all attempts by reformists to reach a compromise had failed.

Khamenei’s decision came following a meeting with President Khatami. Khamenei has the final say on all matters in Iran.

Reformists’ hopes for free and fair elections were revived Wednesday for the first time in weeks, and most said that they would enter the race.