Iran: Reform Party to boycott elections

[Prosperity]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5131-2004Feb2.html

Iran Reform Party to Boycott Elections

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI

The Associated Press

Monday, February 2, 2004; 9:03 AM

TEHRAN, Iran - The leader of Iran's largest pro-reform party said Monday it will boycott Feb. 20 parliamentary elections, saying they would not be free and fair and raising the stakes in the country's growing political crisis.

Mohammad Reza Khatami, leader of the Islamic Iran Participation Front and brother of Iran's president, said the party would not field any candidates because thousands of liberal candidates have been disqualified from the polls by hard-line clerics of the Guardian Council.

Many of the disqualified candidates are sitting lawmakers, including Khatami, who also is deputy parliament speaker.

"We have no hope for the possibility of free and fair elections. All legal opportunities have been killed," Khatami said.

Earlier, the government spokesman said Iranian Cabinet ministers backed calls to postpone the vote and vowed during an emergency meeting not to hold a sham election. The decision came after Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari presented a report saying conditions for free elections did not exist.

"The Cabinet also agreed not to hold elections that are not competitive, fair and free," spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said.

Reformist President Mohammad Khatami did not attend the Cabinet meeting because he is resting at home with severe back pain.

The five ministers assigned last week to reach a compromise with the council said their efforts had failed "despite showing flexibility," Ramezanzadeh said.

The powerful council ultimately decides when an election is held, but the government's position strengthens the hand of reformists demanding a boycott.

Without the participation of the Islamic Iran Participation Front, enough hard-line candidates will run uncontested to retake control of parliament from the reformists. Reformists won the parliament in 2000 for the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and used it as a platform to press for social and political reforms.

The controversy began last month when the Guardian Council, whose 12 members are appointed by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, disqualified more than 3,600 of the 8,200 people filing papers to run in the polls.

After protests and an opinion from Khamenei, the council Friday restored 1,160 low-profile candidates to the list - still keeping more than 2,400 candidates out.

Reformists say the council disqualified liberal candidates to fix the election in favor of conservatives. The hard-liners repeatedly have thwarted President Khatami's efforts toward greater democracy and a relaxation of the Islamic social code.

The council denies political motives and argues that the disqualified candidates lacked the criteria to stand for election, even though more than 80 of them were elected in 2000.

Some 124 lawmakers in the 290-seat Majlis, or parliament, resigned Sunday in a dramatic gesture intended to force the clerical hierarchy to reinstate the candidates.

Hard-liners may have to resort to extraordinary measures - perhaps even relying on the elite revolutionary guards and other armed forces - simply to hold the elections in two weeks as scheduled.

[webnarc]

Quitters. You need to fight for change. If you can't get the change, you need to keep fighting.

Reform Party implies that you want to change the status quo.

Not running is accepting the status quo.

[Prosperity]

Heh sorry, but you are very wrong on that. No point in attending elections when most of the candidates can't even run, and even if the entire parliament was made of reformists they could not do anything to change the country since the mullahs can veto whatever they want. If a system can't be changed from within it has to be destroyed. Reformers even running would legitimize the system.

[webnarc]

Originally posted by Equality

Heh sorry, but you are very wrong on that. No point in attending elections when most of the candidates can't even run, and even if the entire parliament was made of reformists they could not do anything to change the country since the mullahs can veto whatever they want. If a system can't be changed from within it has to be destroyed. Reformers even running would legitimize the system.

Maybe, but it's not going to change if they don't try to do something.

Participating in a mock democracy is the only way to expose it as such. Democratic people world wide do not like hearing how countries adopt and ****ize the democratic system. By stepping out of it, the reformers are not doing their part to facilitate change.

Their actions, while understandable, are disappointing to me because I've felt that there was a chance for change in Iran. People were starting to hear the reformists desires and I felt that there was some global momentum in favor of these changes. Stepping out of the political circle may be the spark for the systems destruction - by war:(.

[SkinInsite]

Well once again people are crying out for freedom while rest of "democratic" world stands by and does nothing.

[Ancalagon the Black]

I think it was a good move by them. It increases world attention on an underexposed phenomenon, and may augment pressure within Iran to motivate change. This is basically a mass protest--and it's working. It's on the front page of the Post and on all the news headlines.