TEHRAN, 30 January 2004 — Iran’s powerful conservative political watchdog, the Guardians Council, has so far reinstated 861 candidates who were among thousands barred from contesting next month’s parliamentary elections, state television reported yesterday.
However, comments by a spokesman of the body’s electoral vetting arm suggested the number of reinstated candidates would not rise much further, given that most appeals have been examined and the final candidate list is to be released late today.
“More than 90 percent of the cases that we are reviewing have been dealt with, and 861 of the disqualified have been reinstated,” Seyed Mohammad Jahromi told state television.
The unelected Guardians Council — a right-wing bastion which screens all laws and candidates for public office — had blacklisted 3,605 of 8,157 prospective candidates who registered to contest the polls.
“At the end of tomorrow (Friday), the final list will be out. The Guardians Council is doing its legal job based on the law, and will not give in to any pressure or propaganda,” he added.
Most on the initial blacklist were reformists, including some 80 sitting MPs. On Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said the Guardians Council had yet to reinstate any incumbent deputies.
The parliamentary elections are scheduled to be held on Feb. 20, although state governors yesterday called for a postponement.
“Bearing in mind the current conditions, it will not be possible to hold the...elections on Feb. 20 as previously scheduled,” the governors said in a letter to Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Even though about a quarter of barred candidates have been reinstated, “organizing a free and fair election is still impossible since a large number...have been deprived of their right to run quite illegally,” the letter said.
State governors are appointed by the interior minister and help organize elections at a provincial level. Their unprecedented opposition to staging an election could make it difficult for Iran to execute the vote smoothly.
Other senior officials have insisted the election will go ahead as planned, but their optimism that most candidate bans would be overturned by the weekend appeared to be unfounded.
A second round of appeals can take place before the vote but scores of reformist MPs have said they will resign or boycott the vote unless most of the bans are overturned by this weekend.
The election row has become the worst political crisis in many years for Iran, which next month marks the 25th anniversary of its 1979 Islamic revolution, and has prompted growing international concern about the legitimacy of the looming vote.
Reformists say the candidate bans are a blatant attempt by conservatives to regain control of Parliament which they lost to reformists in 2000 elections.
They say that unless the bans are overturned, conservatives would contest 190 of Parliament’s 290 seats virtually unopposed.
Analysts were divided on whether the political crisis was likely to worsen or would be resolved.
“This is not the end, it’s still too early,” said Hossein Rassam, who predicted the council would re-admit 1,500 to 2,000 barred candidates after the second round of appeals.
