"ELECTIONS WILL TAKE PLACE ON TIME": KHAMENEH’I
TEHRAN, 4 Feb. (IPS) As expected, Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’I stressed on Wednesday that elections "will be held on due time" and backed the Council of the Guardians in its present dispute with the reformists-controlled Executive and Legislative.
"Holding elections is a duty to the responsible organs. It is not a personal matter that one would say it likes it or not. (Therefore) Majles elections will be held on February 20, without being delayed by even one day", he told a gathering of people he met in his residence in Tehran, broadcast by the Radio and Television.
He ruled as "haram" (religiously forbidden) and "illegal"
any delay of the elections, a demand by some ministers, provincial governors and
the reformist lawmakers rejected by the CG.
As his speech was broadcast, deputies who had stage a protest sit-in to protest the mass disqualifications of the reformist candidates said they would end the sit-in by Thursday.
"There is no knot that can not be untied ... as shown by the revolution which has overcome every obstacle placed in its path", Mr. Khameneh’i said, quoted by the official news agency IRNA, but stopped short of indicating a way out of the crisis, except by confirming indirectly the Guardian’s decision in barring hundreds of candidates, among them 87 leading reformist lawmakers who had urged the government to delay the date of the elections.
"The enemies, by exaggerating the present dispute between the Executive and (election) supervising boards are persuading some officials and others to impede in the elections. The Majles might have been infiltrated by their agents, as there are some who wants more and play in the hands of the enemies", the leader went on, repeating almost word by word threats formulated against protesting lawmakers last Friday by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the regime’s number two man.
In his Friday sermon, Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani had for the first time tagged the reformists as "anti-revolutionaries", a description reserved until now to the monarchists and other leftists opposed to the Islamic republic.
"I’m sorry that some ignorants (government officials and deputies) repeat what the enemies of our people say. They try to influence our officials to impede with the elections, to not accomplish their legal duties. There are also people who want more, who are greedy. They put pressures on our responsible organs that, thanks God, have remained steady, resisting pressures from pressure groups and I pray for them", he said, referring to the Guardians.
After advising the 12-members CG, six of them appointed by him, to "revise" the case of the disqualified deputies, among them the younger brother of the embattled President Mohammad Khatami, Ayatollah Khameneh’i had remained silent, thus strengthening the position of the Guardians in face of the Majles and the Government.
Immediately after the position of Mr. Khameneh’i became public, all senior hard line clerics came out strongly against the reformists and the Majles, described by Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, a former Head of the Judiciary and an influent member of the CG as "a shame" for the Islamic Republic.
The Revolutionary Guards, the ruling ayatollahs Praetorian Guard, also warned the 127 deputies who had tendered their resignations three days ago that they would be "tried shortly" for what it said is "a treachery against the Islamic Revolution and its magnanimous leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i".
"As Ayatollah Khameneh’i has said, elections would be held on time, but without the participation of the voters. The conservatives say they have between 15 to 20 per cent of the public’s vote and that’s enough for them. I would say they have much less, but they don’t care, for if they care for the voice of the people, they must leave", commented Dr. Qasem Sh’oleh Sa’di, a former Member of the Majles and a political dissident.
"As Ayatollah Khameneh’i has said several times, the leader of the Islamic Republic gets its legitimacy from the Almighty, leaving no place for the vote of the people", he commented for the Persian service of the Radio France International.
According to the latest statistics released by the Ministry of Interior, some 46,351,032 individuals of the entire population, excluding the population of the earthquake-stricken city of Bam, are eligible to vote at the seventh parliamentary elections.
The statistics also shows that Tehran province with 8,261,061 voters accounts for 17.82 percent of the total nationwide balloters has the highest rank, IRNA reported. ENDS IRAN DISQUALIFICATIONS KHAMENEH’I 4204