"Given the current situation and the present state of affairs, any attempt aimed at harming the national unity will be considered as an act of betrayal", said Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani during the Friday priers.

As the Head of the Assembly to Discern the Interests of the State (ADIS), a body serving as an advisory body for the fundamentalist leader of the Islamic Republic, ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i, Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani is considered as the strongest voice among the ruling conservatives.

"What Iran now needs is solidarity and unity more than before", the former president said, regretting that tensions have recently intensified between internal power camps, mostly the reformers-dominated Legislative and the conservatives-controlled Judiciary.

The 12-members CG, a powerful body that wets all candidates in all elections in the Islamic Republic and is controlled by the leader rejected ten days ago almost all candidates filed by the reformers, triggering the anger of both the Majles and the Second Khordad Coalition (SKC) that backs thepowerless and embattled President Mohammad Khatami.

In a statement issued after the CG’s decision, Mr. Behzad Nabavi, an influential member of the Majles, warned that if the Council did not revise its decision, the reformers might boycott the Province’s forthcoming by –elections.

The so-called "special right" was at the centre of a bitter row between the government and the Council during the last Legislative elections, when, in a move aimed at securing a seat for the former president who was badly defeated, the guardians had contested the overwhelming victory of reformists candidates in Tehran.

Mr. Ne'mat Ahmadi, a prominent lawyer and university professor said only a referendum on the CG's self-created special right can end the present deadlock between the Majles and the Guardians.

"The Guardian's main duty is to wet candidates, but it now involves itself in every step of elections, from wetting to supervising. The Golestan by-elections has become a catalyst. To clarify the situation, Majles proposed a project to refer the dispute to the ADIS, knowing well that the body would take the side of the Guardians. Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani's anger expressed at the Friday priers translates his worries about a possible referendum", he told the Persian service of the Voice of America.

He was referring to a three urgency bill passed by Majles on Thursday to refer the reformers-CG dispute to the ADIS, a decision that was rejected by Ayatollah Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

"It would be politically immature to sacrifice the interests of the nation and the Islamic Revolution for factional bickering", Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani said, repeating the leader’s endless remarks that – imaginary -- "foreign elements" are seeking to harm the Islamic Republic and the revolution.

Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani was referring to recent comment of a US state official, whom he did not identify, stating, "the Iranian political system must be changed".

He said the authorities answer to the protests in closing down the internet cafes, banning the satellite dishes, forcing internet providers to hand their equipments to the authorities, reinforcing the Islamic codes of behaviour etc. "all points to a system that feels more and more fragile".