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Iran
Reformists temporarily regain ground in Iran
2004-01-21
Iran’s Guardian Council is allowing 200 reformist candidates of more than 3,500 blacklisted a week ago to stand in next month’s elections. Abbas Kadkodaye of the conservative legal body said it was speeding up the review process after an appeal by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "After the order was given by the Supreme Leader, we have been obliged to speed up our work," said Mr Kadkodaye on the Guardian Council website. "So far 200 candidates have been approved". He did not specify which candidates.
"The ones you ain’t heard of."
"The Guardian Council has enough time to review the cases carefully... to prevent the violation of anyone’s rights," he said at the time.
If that were the case, you wouldn’t have banned them in the first place.
On Monday, President Khatami’s party, Association of Non-Combatant Clerics, raised the pressure by threatening to boycott elections scheduled for 20 February. "If urgent measures are not taken to settle the current problem, which prevents free competition between legal political views, there is no further reason for the Association to take part in the parliamentary election," it said in a statement. The Guardian Council on Sunday reiterated its defiant posture in a rare news conference, saying it would not bow to pressure to retract the candidate vetoes. Spokesman Ebrahim Aziz said its members would "not succumb to any pressure or propaganda", but added that they would follow Ayatollah Khamenei’s request to review the cases.
"That wasn’t pressure, that was, um, a request."
The Council has until 30 January to complete its review. Those still disqualified have another chance to appeal before campaigning starts on 12 February.
I’m sure the Association of Pacifist Clerics will be a big help.
Posted by:Steve White

#3  The Guardian Council is just throwing the reformers, or more probably the external world a bone. This is nothing but window dressing. The GC holds the power and they are not going to let go until they get their asses kicked every way to Sunday.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2004-1-21 5:10:12 PM  

#2  Sorry Dan! I'm deeply offended. And nothing you could say can put my emotions at rest. If the current situation doesn't improove then I'm going to buy a sequined suit and become a pearly queen. I'll travel around the world and seek my destiny.

As for the guardian council, yes okay, fine whatever, I'll pray, five times and more, yes, sure, you bet, may I have another!
Posted by: Lucky   2004-1-21 1:21:11 AM  

#1   No offense, but I'm deeply skeptical as to how the Iranian political game is played. How do we know that this whole thing wasn't just staged for external consumption in order to show the Euros that it was the nice fluffy reformists who won in order to act as a PR barrier against US action against them?
Posted by: Dan Darling   2004-1-21 1:03:14 AM  

00:00