Iranian Officials Threaten to Quit

Washington Post ^ | 01/14/2004 | Karl Vick

[JackOfClubs1]

Senior reformist politicians in Iran threatened Tuesday to resign their elective offices if a conservative oversight body does not allow thousands of candidates to run for parliament next month.

The threat came as reformist lawmakers continued a sit-in at the Iranian legislature for a third night to protest the mass disqualifications ordered by the Guardian Council, a conservative-dominated panel that screens candidates under Iran's theocratic system.

"If the government becomes impotent in securing the legitimate freedoms of the nation, it loses its legitimacy," said Mohammad Satarifar, the reformist vice president in charge of the Management and Planning Organization, according to the official news agency IRNA. "And then, whether it dissolves itself or not, it is automatically dissolved."

[JackOfClubs1]

---------------- I am not sure if this is encouraging or not. But notice the similarity of Satarifar's comment to the language of the Declaration of Independence: "That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."