MAJORITY OF DISQUALIFIED LAWMAKERS BARRED FROM ELECTIONS
TEHRAN 30 Jan. (IPS) As the Council of the Guardians announced the final results on the candidates it has approved for running for the seventh Majles under the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the most powerful man after the leader of the regime, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh'i declared conservative’s determination of not bargaining with the reformers.
According to a spokesman for the 12-members Council, 5.450 hopefuls out of a total of 7.900 candidates have been declared fit to run for the next Parliament, but disqualified reformist lawmakers said there are "very few" of them among the eligible candidates.
In a sermon to worshippers in Tehran during the traditional Friday prayers, Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani called on Iranian voters to come to the polls "massively, regardless of any origin or ideologies, to disarm the enemies of the Islamic Republic like the Americans and the Europeans as well as their local pawns, the counter-revolutionaries", referring to the reformers who opposes the massive disqualifications by the CG.
This is the first time that the former president who chairs the powerful Assembly for Discerning the Interests of the State (ADIS, or the Expediency Council) placed in the same basket the reformers who controls the present Majles, now reaching its last days, with the Monarchists and other groups opposed to the Islamic Republic.
"The people of Iran must be vigilant and fully aware that if they do not come out massively for the polls, our enemies who are watching the outcome carefully, would not leave us in peace", he told the worshippers bussed to Tehran University campus.
Almost all other Friday preachers, insisting that voting is both a "moral and religious" duty that must be obeyed by all voters, joined him.
Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani’s harsh words for the reformists signals the end of efforts deployed on both sides, but mostly by the embattled and powerless president Mohammad Khatami and the "chameleon" Speaker of the Majles, Hojjatoleslam Mehdi Karroobi at diffusing the crisis amiably, according to political analysts.
The new attacks on the reformists came as disqualified deputies continued their sit-in while Mr. Khatami’ Government seemed to be divided on the important subject of delaying or not the elections, as demanded by some of the lawmakers.
In fact, the Interior Minister, Hojjatoleslam Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari and some of his colleagues are mending fences with the President over the proposal, made by some deputies to delay the date of the elections, officially sat for 20 February, if the CG insists on its decision to keep most of the reformist candidates out of the race, but Mr. Khatami has declared his opposition, stating that the elections must be held on time.
Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the Secretary of the CG warned the Interior Minister against the plan and Mr. Asadollah Badamchian, a member of the influential Party of Islamic Associations told him that if he is not able to organise "fair and free" elections, he is "free to leave".
In a statement carried by the independent Iranian Students News Agency ISNA, the protesting deputies said in a statement that they would only wait a few more hours "to keep their promise to the people" and boycott the elections.
But analysts said even if they did, nothing would be changed. "The elections would be held on time and the conservative candidates would occupy the majority of the Parliament’s 292 seats. The rest, the warning that a poor turn out would harm the legitimacy of the regime etc are plain nonsense", Dr Qasem Sho'leh Sa'di, a former deputy from Shiraz and a lawyer told Radio Farda, a 24 hours radio station controlled by the US government and based in Prague.
"Students, a powerful political force in a country two-thirds of people are under 30 years-old and the minimum voting age is 15, have kept out of the fray wary of again being drawn into street protests only to be left high and dry by top reformers", Mr. Ali Akbar Dareini, a staff writer of the American news agency The Associated Press said in a dispatch from Tehran, adding:.
"The public also has appeared largely unimpressed by the row, disenchanted by years of broken promises by reformers seemingly unable to bring about social and economic change". ENDS IRAN DISQUALIFICATIONS 30104