TEHRAN, 12 January 2004 — Iran was plunged into a major political crisis yesterday after powerful conservatives moved to disqualify massive numbers of reformists from standing in next month’s crucial parliamentary elections, a move one MP branded a “coup d’etat”.
There was uproar in Parliament, held for the past four years by moderates loyal to President Mohammad Khatami, as it emerged that the Guardians’ Council had also barred leading pillars of the reform movement, including a brother of the president. “I consider this rejection of candidates to be an illegal coup d’etat and an act of regime change by non-military means,” fumed Mohsen Mirdamadi, head of the Parliament’s foreign policy and national security commission.
Mirdamadi was one of over 80 incumbent reformist MPs who have been barred from standing in the Feb. 20 election by the 12-member Guardians’ Council, an unelected political supervisory body and bastion of the religious right.
He said the bulk of disqualified MPs were found to have been in violation of an article in the electoral law that stipulates candidates must show their commitment to Islam and respect the position of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader.
Mohammad Reza Khatami, the president’s brother and head of the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) — the Islamic republic’s largest pro-reform party — said the move was a mockery of democracy.
“If the situation continues, the conditions for voting will not exist, people will not be prepared to vote and naturally we are heading in the direction of a national election boycott,” he said. “We demand the president and the government... not be responsible for organizing undemocratic elections,” he told AFP, while warning of dire consequences for Iran’s international image.
The Majlis building, where reformist MPs gathered for an all-night sit-in, would be transformed into “a center of resistance against this illegal action,” he said. As one senior politician revealed a group of up to eight Cabinet ministers had “prepared their letters of resignation”, the president himself issued an impassioned appeal for calm.
“Violence must be averted. Insha’allah (God willing), with calm we can solve this problem. We should not do anything to stoke tensions,” Khatami said, alluding to fears the latest explosion of reformist-conservative tensions could again bring out pro-reform students — already frustrated with the slow pace of reforms — onto the streets.
And speaking during a stormy Majlis session carried live on state radio, Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karoubi said he and the president were in contact with the Guardians’ Council and Ayatollah Khamenei. Calling on those rejected to “lodge a formal complaint”, Karoubi said reformers had several channels and time to reverse the decision before a definitive list is published 10 days before the vote.
