TEHRAN, 23 May 2005 — Iran’s conservative legislative watchdog yesterday cleared six out of 1,014 hopefuls to stand for president on June 17, including frontrunner Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and his closest rivals in the polls. The Guardian Council’s statement, issued through state media, contained no big surprises and gave the green light to powerful ex-President Rafsanjani, 70, former chief of police Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, 43, and former head of state broadcasting Ali Larijani, 48.
It also cleared the former commander in chief of the hard-line Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezaie, and Tehran’s mayor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. All of these hail from various factions of the conservative camp. The only reformist who was cleared was former Parliament Speaker Mehdi Karroubi.
The only other reformist to make an impression in opinion polls, former higher education minister Mostafa Moin, was banned from running. Moin had stood up for the rights of students, often the spearhead of the reformist movement who have borne the brunt of crackdowns by the police and religious paramilitaries.
Conservatives regained Parliament from reformists in elections in February 2004 after the Guardian Council banned thousands of liberal candidates from standing. They are poised to extend their grasp on power to the presidency thanks to widespread disenchantment with President Mohammad Khatami’s largely failed attempts at social and economic reform.
Meanwhile, dozens of journalists protested in front of Iran’s Parliament yesterday after one reporter was barred from the assembly and a lawmaker accused journalists of being liars. Parliament has had an uneasy relationship with the country’s reformist media since hardliners won a majority of seats in the assembly in February 2004 elections.
“You are a bunch of liars who don’t believe in anything and lie for a loaf of bread,” hard-line MP Mehdi Kouchakzadeh was quoted by the official IRNA news agency as saying to a reporter in Parliament this week. About 60 journalists, who held banners reading: “Stop the crackdown on the press” and “Insulting reporters is insulting freedom”, took part in the protest.
“We want that lawmaker (Kouchakzadeh) punished,” said Iran’s Press Association spokesman Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, who led the protest. “The Parliament speaker must apologize to journalists from the parliament’s podium,” he told Reuters by telephone.
Shamsolvaezin blamed Khatami for what he called a new wave of attacks against media. “The closer he gets to the end of his term, the president is becoming more and more indifferent about press freedom. I hold him responsible too,” he said.
