GUARDIANS REJECT MOST LEADING REFORMIST CANDIDATES
TEHRAN 9TH Jan. (IPS) As expected, most reformist candidates running for the next Majles (parliament) have been rejected by the conservatives-controlled Council of the Guardians, Iranian newspapers reported.
According to the reports, 30 of the eliminated ones are sitting in the present chamber.
Though the Council should have communicated today the list of the eligible candidates to the governors and mayors, but informed sources said many participants have not received any confirmation.
Newspapers and reformist sources said the Councilmen have rejected a great number of known reformist and pro-Khatami candidates on fabricated grounds such as not being in the line of the Islam or revolution, or because they have failed in their fidelity to the leader, the revolution or the Islamic system.
In a letter sent last week to President hojatoleslam Mohammad Khatami, 32 reformist personalities, including his younger brother, called on him to use his presidential prerogatives and powers to stop the Guardians applying to candidates harsh regulations they had newly introduced, facilitating the rejection of candidates on grounds such as their absence from Friday priers or state-organised demonstrations, the lack of total allegiance to velayat motlaqeh faqih or the absolute rule of the Tutor, an immaculate social behaviour etc.
The Interior Minister immediately reacted, saying the Guardians, all appointed by the leader, ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i have not the constitutional right of issuing regulations, but the watchdog body had responded that they would do what they think is right for the regime.
Several leading clerics, including grand ayatollah Hossein Musawi Tabrizi and ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri, the outspoken Friday preacher of Esfahan have described as unconstitutional the decision of the Council to write new regulations for the elections, stating that fixing regulations was of the government's duties.
But Guardians spokesman ayatollah Reza Ostadi made it clear that constitutional or not, rightful or not, the councilmen would go according to their decision and they will not "yield to outside noises and pressures".
In a recent speech, Mr. Khameneh'i defended the Council and criticised the signatories of the letter instead, pointing that each institution had its duties defined clearly by the constitution.
Like other decisions taken recently at different level, including the Majles, where the number of the vote necessary for entering the next chamber in the first round was lowered from two third to a quarter, are denounced by the reformists as measures to eliminate as much as possible pro-reform candidates in favour of the conservatives and hard liners.
Among the personalities named by the paper are prominent pro-Khatami journalists, clerics, students leaders and party members such as Latif Safari, Abbas Abdi and Hamid Reza Jala'i Pour, Heshmatollah Tabarzadi, hojatoleslams Abdollah Nouri and Mohammad Musawi Kho'einiha, publishers of Khordad and Salam. Both banned, Mohsen Armin the secretary of the Islamic Revolution's Mujahedeen Organisation and Behzad Nabavi, a former heavy Industries Minister. ENDS ELECTIONS 9100