Wednesday, January 21, 2004 - Iran - Associated Press Writer (AP)
Row deepens Iran election crisis 6:23:30 PM Most of Iran’s Cabinet ministers and vice presidents have submitted their resignations, accusing hard-liners of trying to engineer a sympathetic parliament by disqualifying thousands of prospective election candidates.As Iran’s deepest political crisis in years expanded, Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi warned that unless the disqualifications are reversed, “the country will face many problems, both at home and abroad.”Government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh said letters of resignation from most of Iran’s six vice presidents and most of its 24 Cabinet ministers were handed to President Mohammad Khatami last week. He did not identify the resigning politicians.“Such disqualifications of prospective candidates is against democracy,” Abtahi said after a Cabinet meeting. ”The 1979 Islamic revolution was based on democracy, and such methods (by hard-liners) damage our Islamic democracy and turn elections into sham elections.”The disqualifications of more than a third of the 8,200 candidates next month’s parliamentary elections were made by Iran’s Guardian Council, an unelected body controlled by hard-liners.Those disqualified include 80 sitting reformist MPs, who have been holding sit-ins and dawn-to-dusk fasts to protest the decision. The council on Tuesday reinstated 200 of the disqualified candidates and said it would reconsider the rest.But reformists said the reinstatements were not enough. Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari presented a report during today’s Cabinet session saying the hard-liners want to secure at least 180 seats in the 290 seat parliament.The resignations announced deepened the crisis.“A number of Cabinet ministers and a number of vice presidents have resigned,” Abtahi said. “Naturally, they are waiting to see how things go. The Cabinet ministers are very serious in their resignation.”Khatami, a leading reformer, has to endorse the resignations for them to take effect.The president has threatened to resign himself if the disqualifications are not reversed. Today, however, he refused to take that step.“Because of my position, I have the responsibility to show that I serve the people,” he said in Switzerland, where he was attending the World Economic Forum. “I intend to continue in my job and to serve the people. I intend to fulfil my duty.”Abtahi said a presidential committee in recent days has ”exerted much effort to reverse the situation, but practically, there has been little progress.” When asked if he too had offered his resignation, Abtahi smiled but did not respond.In Germany, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called for free elections.“We follow very closely the developments in Iran,” Annan said. “I hope they will be able to find a way to resolve their differences, so that one can have free and fair elections with participation of all the parties.”Political analyst Reza Mahmoudi said most Iranians don’t expect the politicians to follow through on their resignation threat.“The resignations are apparently intended to raise hopes and get a disappointed young nation back to the ballot boxes,” he said. “Although the fight is now very serious, people will realise this only if reformers boycott the polls altogether.”Political activist Hasan Zarezadeh said the tactics will have no effect on the hard-liners.“This is the final battle for survival,” he said. ”Hard-liners don’t want reformers in power and are determined to take control of parliament at any cost. Reformers need to boycott polls or stand up firmly if they want to have any future.”State media controlled by hard-liners say the disqualified candidates failed to meet legal criteria for candidacy, but reformists maintain the move was intended to skew the elections in favour of conservatives. Hard-liners already control key unelected bodies, including the judiciary and the powerful Guardian Council.
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