Iran's parliamentary speaker, Mehdi Karubi, today proposed a "compromise" to get the country out of a constitutional crisis following the postponement of the swearing-in of reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday announced that today's investiture could not go ahead until a power-struggle between reformists and conservatives is settled.
Reformist lawmakers and conservative judiciary have clashed over representation on Iran's powerful, conservative-controlled Guardians Council.
The clash came to a head on Saturday when parliament twice rejected candidates nominated by the judiciary to take vacant seats on the Council, which rules on constitutional matters.
The constitution stipulates that the investiture ceremony of a president be carried out in the presence of "all the members" of the Guardians Council.
But Karubi, a key reformist ally of Khatami, proposed to parliament today "to form a committee to solve the problem and reach a compromise on the issue with the people concerned."
He said members of parliament, the judiciary and the country's spiritual leader Khamenei "could be part of this committee."
He said the delay of the investiture risked causing "serious damage" to the Islamic regime, but he said the ceremony could "very well go ahead in all legality" today, as originally scheduled.
Khatami on Thursday went through an initial investiture for his second and final four-year term before the leaders of the Islamic regime, including Khamenei, but he cannot form a government before his parliamentary investiture.
The Guardians Council, which supervises elections and examines laws to ensure their compatability with the constitution and with Islamic precepts, is composed of 12 members.
Six are chosen by Khamenei, as supreme leader, and six by parliament from a list prepared by the judiciary. Selections for half the council's positions are renewed every three years.
Lawmakers made it known over the past several weeks that they disapproved of the candidates nominated by the judiciary as being "too political."
Khatami won the June 8 presidential elections with a landslide of nearly 80 percent of the popular vote against nine other mostly conservative challengers.
Conservatives have charged that Khatami's relaxation of social restrictions, especially on women, is undermining the Islamic foundations of the regime and tempting youth, who make up two-thirds of the population, away from Islam.
AFP