BREAKING RANKS, KHATAMI SAYS ELECTIONS WOULD TAKE PLACE ON TIME

TEHRAN, 27 Jan. (IPS) Iranian President Mohammad Khatami broke rank Tuesday with his reformist camp by stating firmly that elections for the next Majles, or parliament "would be held on time".

"No force, being it local or foreign, would prevent the elections for the seventh Majles of the Islamic Republic to be organized on the schedule time", Mr. Khatami told journalist while bidding farewell to his Austrian guest.

His firm statement came as a shock to the reformist lawmakers rejected by the Council of the Guardians to run for the next Legislative exercise, due on 20 February, urging the Government to consider delaying the elections in case the Guardians insist on their decision.

Mr. Khatami’s declaration was also a rebuke to the Government’s official spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh who, on Monday, had assured journalists that there would be no elections if they are not "fair, free and just, offering equal chances to all the hopefuls".

Next to suggesting a delayed elections, rejected deputies did also proposed a mass resignation of the entire Government and reformist faction of the Majles or a national referendum on the issue in case the CG insisted on its disqualifications that includes the President’s younger brother, Dr Mohammad Reza Khatami as well as all senior tenors of the reformists camp both inside and outside the House.

"Once again, Khatami betrayed both the people and his camp by bowing to the conservatives, taking the side of the leader, Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, who effectively control the CG", one Iranian analyst told Iran Press Service on condition of anonymity.

"Ever since he came to power seven years ago, Khatami always sided with Mr. Khameneh’i on every major power struggle opposing the reformists to the ruling conservatives", the analyst pointed out.

Coming as some 50 students from the Office for Consolidating Unity, the Iranian student’s largest organization joined the bulk of reformist MMs (Members of the Majles) in their sit-in, now in its 17^th day, protesting the CG’s decision to bar more than 3.000 candidates, including some 80 incumbent reformist lawmakers, from presenting themselves to the electorate.

The students decided to support the lawmakers despite recriminations against the reformists in general and the those in the Parliament in particular, not forgetting the President himself, for their lack of support for the students during their historic uprising of July 1999, their protests against the death sentence pronounced by the Judiciary against professor Hashem Aqajari and their last demonstrations in the summer of 2002, according to a dispatch by the French news agency AFP, quoting Mr. Abdollah Mo’meni, a member of the OCU Executive Committee.

To diffuse the crisis that some analysts describes as a "storm in a tea cup" because of the indifference shown by the general public, Ayatollah Khameneh’I, who last week had urged the 12-members Council to "review" the disqualifications, met last night with the heads of three powers.

As a result, a four-ministers committee comprising those of Information (Intelligence), Mines and Industries, Trade and Oil was formed Tuesday to find a solution for the crisis.

According to the Majles Speaker Hojjatoleslam Mehdi Karroobi, the Committee has until Thursday to submit its conclusions. But a spokesman for the protesters repeated Tuesday that in case they do not get a satisfactory answer from the CG, they would resign on Sunday.

In fact, in a letter to the Interior Minister Hojjatoleslam Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari, the Secretary of the CG, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati observed that lawmakers could not be automatically validated because they had received approval in earlier elections.

But considering the fact that the Guardians rejected outright an "urgent" proposal of the reformists-controlled Majles to help finding a solution and has yet to respond to the leader’s order to review the disqualifications, many analysts expressed doubt that the Committee would support the protesters.

Meanwhile, Grand Ayatollah Hoseyali Montazeri, Iran and one of the Shi’a Muslim’s most senior religious authority expressed solidarity with the disqualified lawmakers and at the same time urged the CG to "stop at once its illegal, unjust and irrational attitude that damages Islam, the Islamic revolution and the Iranian people".

Because of his harsh criticism of the present leaders, most particularly Ayatollah Khameneh’i, Mr. Montazeri was placed under house arrest for more than five years in his residence in the city of Qom and prevented from teaching. Though he recovered partial and conditional freedom, but he continued his timely criticim, that also includes the embattled President Khatami. ENDS IRAN DISQUALIFICATIONS 27104