On Wednesday Iran's provincial governors escalated the confrontation over who can run in next month's elections by declaring they would not allow polling in their areas unless most of the disqualifications are overturned.
"All provincial governors have announced unanimously that, under present circumstances, there will be no possibility of holding elections," Interior Ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani said.
While Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the authority to overrule the governors, their declaration suggests that if the hard-liners responsible for the disqualifications do not back down, they will have to resort to extraordinary measures to hold the legislative elections on Feb. 20.
PHOTO: REUTERS
The hard-line Guardian Council has disqualified more than a third of the 8,200 candidates -- including more than 80 sitting lawmakers. The move has triggered Iran's biggest political crisis in years, with reformers accusing conservatives of trying to skewer the elections.
Khanjani said the governors made the decision at a meeting in Tehran that ended on Wednesday night.
Earlier Wednesday, Iran's largest group of pro-reform students urged people to boycott next month's elections in protest against the disqualifications. It was the first time any political group had called for a boycott since the crisis erupted.
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami tried to head off a boycott of the legislative elections on Feb. 20, telling reporters he would strive to reverse the disqualifications down to the last unfairly treated candidate.
"There is no possibility of fair and free elections," the student movement, the Office for Fostering Unity, said in a statement carried on the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
"Considering that people's votes have no affect on the establishment, and there is no way to hold fair and free elections, there is no justification for people to participate in this election," the students said in their statement.
The students praised the reformist lawmakers who have been staging sit-in protests in the parliament building since the disqualifications were announced earlier this month.
Khatami set aside earlier hints that he might resign over the affair and pledged to work both to reinstate the candidates and to defend the reform program that hard-liners have largely succeeded in blocking.
"Even if one person has been disqualified unfairly, as the president, I will defend his right," Khatami said Wednesday.
Appearing more confident than he has been in recent weeks, Khatami said: "If somebody is a thief, or is a drug smuggler or documents prove he has worked to overthrow the establishment, he is not qualified to run. But all those disqualified were so? ... Many of those disqualified deserve to run."
The Guardian Council has reinstated more than 700 candidates, Khatami said. "Based on our talks, this figure is set to rise," he added.
Iran's chief of elections, Deputy Interior Minister Morteza Moballegh, criticized the Guardian Council on Wednesday, accusing them of taking too long to review the disqualifications in a more sympathetic light, as Khamenei has urged them to do.
"Not even one prominent person or lawmaker is among those reinstated. The trend of reinstatements is not convincing," Moballegh said.
"If only a few disqualified persons are to be reinstated, we won't hold elections," Moballegh said.
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