Iran's Guardian Council "Won't Back Down At All"
January 18, 2004
Dow Jones Newswires
The Associated Press
TEHRAN -- Iran's hardline Guardian Council defended on Sunday its disqualification of prospective candidates for next month's parliamentary elections, further deepening the political crisis that has prompted sit-ins and warnings by the government that it won't hold sham elections.
"We claim that the Guardian Council has constantly implemented the law. ... Hues and cries will have no impact on our interpretation of the law," Guardian Council spokesman Ebrahim Azizi told reporters.
The Guardian Council, an unelected body controlled by hardliners, has triggered a crisis by disqualifying more than a third of the 8,200 people who applied to stand in the Feb. 20 elections.
State media controlled by hardliners say the disqualified fell short on the necessary criteria, but reformists say the move was political and intended to skew the elections in favor of conservatives.
On Saturday, reformist Deputy Interior Minister Morteza Moballegh, who is Iran's chief of elections, warned he would not allow next month's legislative elections to proceed unless hardliners retracted their mass disqualification of reformists who'd hoped to run, including more than 80 sitting reformist lawmakers.
About 80 reformist lawmakers, who began holding daily sit-ins last Sunday to protest the disqualifications, took their weeklong protest against the Guardian Council a step further Saturday when they began holding dawn-to-dusk fasts.
"The Guardian Council won't back down at all," Azizi told a press conference.
The comments dashed hopes of a breakthrough after Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the Guardian Council Wednesday to reconsider the disqualifications and laid down criteria that appeared to be easier to meet.
"Lawmakers whose speech or behavior suggest that they have had no loyalty to Islam or the constitution will remain disqualified," Azizi said.
Most of the protesting lawmakers say they've been disqualified because of their criticism of the unelected hardliners in open sessions of parliament.
Reformers have welcomed Khamenei's intervention, but said they would wait to see how the council responded.
Khamenei chooses the council's 12 members, and some reformist legislators have said the councilors would not have acted without the supreme leader's approval.
Khamenei also said this week that the council should "resist bullying tactics" by lawmakers.
The disqualifications generated wide protests. Scores of legislators staged a daily sit-in in the lobby in parliament. President Mohammad Khatami condemned the disqualifications and warned he might resign if they were not reversed. And the European Union and the U.S. said the elections would lose credibility unless the disqualifications were overturned.
Iran's 27 provincial governors have vowed to resign by Monday unless disqualifications are reversed.
The Feb. 20 elections are seen as a test for Iran's reformers, whose popularity has waned because of their perceived failure to deliver on promises of liberalization.
Over 46 million Iranians are eligible to vote on Feb. 20, more than 7 million of them youths just past the minimum age of 15 to vote.
Reformists believe the ruling Islamic establishment needs to become more open and respect the demands of its overwhelmingly youthful population.
Hardliners regard such reforms as undermining the principles of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
http://framehosting.dowjonesnews.com/sample/samplestory.asp?StoryID=2004011811250000&Take=1