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Iran's governors confront Tehran

Provincial officials refuse to allow elections unless candidates reinstated

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's provincial governors escalated the confrontation today over who can run in next month's elections by declaring they would not allow polling in their areas unless most of the disqualifications are overturned.
"All provincial governors have announced unanimously that, under present circumstances, there will be no possibility of holding elections," Interior Ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani told The Associated Press.

While Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the authority to overrule the governors, their declaration suggests that if the hardliners responsible for the disqualifications do not back down, they will have to resort to extraordinary measures to hold the legislative elections on Feb. 20.

The hardline Guardian Council has disqualified more than a third of the 8,200 candidates, including more than 80 sitting legislators. The move has triggered Iran's biggest political crisis in years, with reformers accusing conservatives of trying to skewer the elections.

Khanjani said the governors made the decision at a meeting in Tehran that ended tonight.

Earlier today, Iran's largest group of pro-reform students urged people to boycott next month's elections in protest against the disqualifications. It was the first time any political group had called for a boycott since the crisis erupted.

President Mohammad Khatami tried to head off a boycott of the legislative elections on Feb. 20, telling reporters he would strive to reverse the disqualifications down to the last unfairly treated candidate.

"There is no possibility of fair and free elections," the student movement, the Office for Fostering Unity, said in a statement carried on the official Islamic Republic News Agency.

"Considering that people's vote has no affect on the establishment, and there is no way to hold fair and free elections, there is no justification for people to participate in this election," the students said in their statement.

The students praised the reformist legislators, who have been staging sit-in protests in the parliament building since the disqualifications were announced earlier this month.

Khatami set aside earlier hints that he might resign over the affair and pledged to work both to reinstate the candidates and to defend the reform program that hardliners have largely succeeded in blocking.

"Even if one person has been disqualified unfairly, as the president, I will defend his right," Khatami told reporters after a cabinet meeting today.

Appearing more confident than he has been in recent weeks, Khatami said: "If somebody is a thief, or is a drug smuggler or documents prove he has worked to overthrow the establishment, he is not qualified to run. But all those disqualified were so? ... Many of those disqualified deserve to run."

The Guardian Council has reinstated more than 700 candidates, Khatami said. "Based on our talks, this figure is set to rise," he added.

Iran's chief of elections, Deputy Interior Minister Morteza Moballegh, criticized the Guardian Council today, accusing them of taking too long to review the disqualifications in a more sympathetic light, as supreme leader Khamenei has urged them to do.

"Not even one prominent person or legislator is among those reinstated," Moballegh said in a statement on the Interior Ministry's website. "The trend of reinstatements is not convincing. If only a few disqualified persons are to be reinstated, we won't hold such elections."

Khatami referred to ongoing meetings between the Guardian Council and four cabinet ministers who were assigned to reach a compromise after top reformists and hard-liners met Khamenei on Monday night.

Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani, one of the four ministers, was optimistic today.

"The necessary ground has been prepared to settle the dispute over the disqualification of candidates," IRNA quoted Shamkhani as saying.

But Iran's largest reformist political party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, sounded pessimistic, saying the number of reinstatements was insufficient.

"It's not important how many disqualified candidates are reinstated. The key is that candidates of all tendencies must be free to run unless strong legal reasons proves them to be unfit," said Saeed Shariati, a leader of the front.

Khatami said he has not accepted the resignation of his cabinet ministers and vice presidents because "we must hold competitive elections."

Last week, the government announced that most of Iran's six vice-presidents and 24 ministers had tendered their resignations. They were not identified, and the resignations needed Khatami's approval to become effective.

The president said he intended to complete his second four-year term, which expires in May 2005, in order to defend a program of political and social reforms he has pursued since his first election in 1997.

"Reform is in our essence. The content of my work has been to bring reforms ... I've come and will stay to the end," he said.

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