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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (36243)	1/25/2004 4:23:34 PM
From: lurqer	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 89467

I've been following this escalating situation. Let's hope that Bush & Co. don't blow this one. Iran Hard-Liners Veto Election Bill Iran's hard-line Guardian Council has vetoed a bill that sought to reverse the disqualification of thousands of reformist electoral candidates, a leading legislator said Sunday night. The move is part of an escalating battle between reform-minded lawmakers and religious conservatives who dominate the most powerful branches of the government. "We've been informed that the Guardian Council has vetoed the legislation on the grounds that it contradicted the constitution and Sharia (Islamic) law," Mohsen Mirdamadi told The Associated Press. Mirdamadi heads the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of the parliament and is one of the lawmakers disqualified. The bill sought to overturn the disqualification of more than a third of the 8,200 candidates who registered for the Feb. 20 elections. Members of the Guardian Council could not immediately reached for comment. The veto is considered likely to provoke a boycott of the elections by reformist parties and politicians, who dominate the current 290-seat parliament. Reformists had condemned the disqualifications as an attempt by the hard-liners to skew the elections in their favor. The legislators had passed the bill earlier Sunday in a session broadcast live on state radio. They categorized it as "triple-urgent," meaning highest priority. It was the first time since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution that parliament had approved a triple-urgency bill. The bill would have amended the National Elections law to force the Guardian Council, which oversees elections, to reinstate all candidates unless there is legal documentation to prove them unfit for parliament. The council's members are chosen by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has asked the body to reconsider its disqualifications. The council has reinstated only a few hundred candidates. Its slow response has angered reformists, who say it does not act without the supreme leader's approval. After the bill was passed, and before it was vetoed, lawmaker Rajabali Mazrouei said the crisis would determine in which direction Iran moves: toward dictatorship or democracy. He said rejection of the bill would mean the council was "publicly revealing its true objective of imposing brazen dictatorship." "The rejection will mean that all options to avert an exacerbation of the crisis are finished," Mazrouei added. Reformist political parties have threatened to boycott the elections if the disqualifications are not overturned. Members of Khatami's government have said they will not hold what would be "sham elections." On Friday, Khatami and parliamentary speaker Mahdi Karroubi warned that unless the disqualifications were withdrawn, there would be no liberal candidates in more than two-thirds of the electoral districts. The battle over who can run on Feb. 20 has turned into Iran's worst political crisis in years. Reformers believe the conservatives are trying to tilt the elections so they will regain control of the 290-seat parliament. In the 2000 polls, the hard-liners lost the majority in the assembly for the first time since the 1979 revolution. Hard-liners claim the disqualified candidates including more than 80 sitting lawmakers failed to meet legal requirements to run. abcnews.go.com lurqer