IRAN: Iran's government said yesterday that planned elections could soon be back on course after the country's supreme leader stepped in to defuse a bitter row between reformers and hard-liners that threatened to derail them.
Officials of the pro-reform government said Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the last word on all state matters, had for a second time called on the hardline Guardian Council to review hundreds of bans it put on candidates for the February 20th vote.
After several days of mounting tension, during which scores of reformist lawmakers resigned and the government threatened not to stage the parliamentary polls, a solution was now in sight, officials said.
"We hope that by tomorrow afternoon we can reach acceptable results which could prepare the ground for the government to be able to hold the election," government spokesman Abdollah Ramazanzadeh told reporters.
Ayatollah Khamenei has ordered a review of the bans before, but the Guardian Council, which vets election candidates, last week only reinstated one third of those who appealed, leaving more than 2,000 off the ballot. Reformist allies of President Mohammad Khatami, who had previously said they would boycott the election even if all of the barred candidates were reinstated, hinted they might be prepared to accept the new deal.
"If there are positive developments we will review our decisions for the future," Ali Shakourirad, a member of Iran's largest reform party, said.
"I believe there is a lot of hope but we should wait and see what practical steps are taken." The vast majority of those barred were reformists and included more than 80 members of the 290-seat parliament.
But in a sign that the Guardian Council, an unelected body dominated by religious hardliners, might reinstate only a few more candidates, one of its members insisted that those disqualified were unfit to hold office.
"I swear that all the disqualifications were based on law," the ISNA news agency quoted Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi as telling students in the holy city of Qom. - (Reuters)