Iran lifts poll ban on 700
1.28.2004
TEHRAN: Seven hundred candidates who were among thousands barred from contesting next month's parliamentary polls, have had their candidacies reinstated, Iran's state news agency IRNA said yesterday.
The report quoted a source in the Guardians Council, a political watchdog that sparked a major political crisis when it blacklisted 3,605 out of the 8,157 people who registered to contest the February 20 elections.
Most of those reinstated on appeal were for voting in greater Tehran.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ordered the Guardians Council, an unelected body which screens all laws and candidates, to be less stringent in its vetting.
The Council is still examining appeals, and is due to release its final list of approved candidates on Friday.
The mass barring of candidates, most of them reformists, prompted allegations that hardliners were seeking to rig the elections.
Meanwhile, President Mohammad Khatami has refused to accept the resignation of top government officials, while reformists spoke of a compromise in the efforts to resolve the country's worst political crisis in years.
Khatami said the ministers and vice-presidents, who had submitted their resignations to protest a hard-line council's mass disqualification of election candidates, had a duty to perform. He called on them to "proceed with their services to the people", the agency said.
http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=72745&Sn=WORLJust as I predicted...
The world media has had several weeks to follow this so called "crisis" and wake up to the reality that Iran is not a democracy.
Now the only question is whether or not the world media will have the courage to expose this fraudulent government OR call this a reformist triumph and a victory for democracy.