[article] Good News (in a funny way) from Iran

mike65

Iranian MPs resign over election row
Sun 1 February, 2004 14:41

By Parinoosh Arami

TEHRAN (Reuters) - More than a third of Iran's parliament has resigned, escalating a bitter political row on the 25th anniversary of the return from exile of the founding father of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

A quarter of a century after Khomeini's triumphant return ushered in clerical rule, Iran's political system has been plunged into its worst crisis for years by a hardline body's decision to bar hundreds of candidates from this month's parliamentary elections.

Lawmakers formed an orderly queue on Sunday to submit the 117 typed resignation letters to parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi.

In a stormy parliament session, angry deputies denounced the Guardian Council -- an unelected hardline body comprised of 12 clerics and Islamic jurists -- for disqualifying more than 2,000 would-be lawmakers from standing in the February 20 ballot.

"They want to cover the ugly body of dictatorship with the beautiful dress of democracy," prominent reformist deputy Mohsen Mirdamadi said in a speech on behalf of resigning lawmakers.

"We had no choice but to resign," he said in an unusually blunt address, which was also broadcast live on state radio.

Reformists won about 190 of parliament's 290 seats in elections in 2000. Those barred from this month's vote include more than 80 current reformist deputies.

President Mohammad Khatami's reformist government, which has been engaged in a bitter power struggle with hardliners since he was elected in 1997, has said it may refuse to hold the vote. Reformist parties say they will boycott the election.

Hardliners have used their sweeping powers to block most reform efforts for the past seven years. Khatami's allies accuse them of making a blatant grab for power.

"One (political) faction lacks the support of the people. They want to gain it by force through the Guardian Council," Karroubi said.

Khatami made no comment on the row at a ceremony to open a new international airport for Tehran.

But in an apparent reference to his hardline opponents, the official IRNA news agency quoted Khatami as saying: "Those who are tuned to the will of the nation will survive and those who stand against the people...are doomed to extinction."

SOLUTION LIES WITH LEADER

Karroubi appealed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini in 1989, to intervene in the dispute.

Analysts say Khamenei, who has the final say on all state matters, is the best hope for a resolution of the crisis and may choose to order many of the candidate bans overturned to avert a legitimacy crisis and heightened international criticism.

Despite the increasing political tension, public interest in the dispute has remained muted. After years of broken promises of reform, most Iranians have grown disenchanted with the reformist-conservative power struggle.

The mass resignations -- which will be submitted to a parliamentary vote later in the week -- will make it difficult for the assembly to function, given the requirement for a quorum of two-thirds of members to hold a session.

The vote dispute has raised concern abroad about the future of democracy in the oil-rich nation of 66 million people.

"Domestic instability will create challenges for our foreign policy," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi.

Among those to resign were deputy parliament speakers Behzad Nabavi and Mohammad Reza Khatami, brother of the president.

Although such behaviour by the clerics is still happening its the reaction of the progressive lawmakers that is for me a sign of hope. Just maybe they'll be able to force the matter for once and for all.

I also note that the US gov are sending out a rep for disussions with Iranian offcials.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2047-2004Jan31.html

Mike.