TEHRAN, 17 February 2004 — A top Iranian reformist vowed yesterday his embattled movement’s effort to democratize the Islamic republic would go on after Friday’s elections, even though moderates are poised to lose polls he said had been rigged by conservatives.
“We consider these elections to be unfair, but have decided to take part because our participation is more productive than our absence,” said parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karoubi, an Islamic scholar close to embattled President Mohammad Khatami.
“The rights of a lot of people have been trampled on, but this means we should modify the electoral law,” asserted the Majlis speaker at a press conference.
Karoubi’s Association of Combatant Clerics is one of the few reformist parties that has chosen to take part in the polls, although on Sunday the spokesman for the reformist coalition it has joined conceded there was no chance of heading off a conservative victory.
The main reformist parties are boycotting the elections after a conservative-run political vetting body, the Guardian Council, barred some 2,300 people — most of them reformists — from even standing. They are the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), which is headed by the brother of the president, Mohammad Reza Khatami, and the Organization of Mujahedeen of the Islamic Revolution (OMIR), on the left of the reform camp.
Karoubi’s Association of Combatant Clerics is taking part under the banner “Coalition for Iran”, a grouping of the few reformers approved to stand and some independents. Their spokesman on Sunday said that winning just a handful of seats in the 290-seat Majlis would represent a victory. Karoubi said those boycotting the polls “have the right not to take part, but should not campaign for a mass abstention.”
“If we get or do not get votes, we will continue our activities. The future of reforms depends on the people, and they will continue through different means,” added the scholar, seen as a pillar of the Islamic regime. Karoubi also stood by the president, under fire for failing to deliver on his promise to shake up the way Iran is ruled and widely criticized for being too weak in the face of opposition from entrenched hard-liners in the judiciary and political oversight bodies. Campaigning has far been a lackluster affair marked by widespread apathy, and turnout is expected to be low, despite calls from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for mass participation.
