Iran's largest reform party said today it would boycott this month's parliamentary election, even if a hardline watchdog group overturns its ban on hundreds of reformist candidates.
"We will not take part in the elections of February 20th," Mr Mohammad Reza Khatami, head of the Participation Front party, told a news conference.
He added the party, one of the main backers of his brother President Mohammad Khatami, would only put forward candidates for an election if the bans were overturned and the vote was postponed to allow more time for campaigning.
Reformists pushed today for a postponement of the election in a showdown with hardliners that has plunged the Islamic Republic into its worst political crisis in years.
More than 120 reformist lawmakers handed in their resignations yesterday over the vote row.
Reformists are objecting to a decision by the Guardian Council - an unelected constitutional oversight body run by religious hardliners - to declare more than 2,000 would-be lawmakers unfit to stand in the February 20th election.