Lawmaker: 700 reformists registered for Iran's election

Jan 3, 2012, 12:13 GMT

Tehran - An Iranian lawmaker said Tuesday that, out of the total 5,395 candidates who registered for the parliamentary election, 700 were either reformists or affiliated to them.

If the 700 were approved to run in the elections, they would make their name list for the election campaign in the capital Tehran and several provinces, lawmaker Mostafa Kovakabian told Mehr news agency.

The establishment brands the reformist wing a 'conspiracy current' and de facto opposition, because of its involvement in the protests that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election, in which Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected.

Under Iran's constitution, the conservative Guardian Council - an ideological watchdog of six clerics and six lawyers - has the authority to disqualify candidates considered disloyal to the country's Islamic system.

The Guardian Council does not have specific criteria for approving or rejecting the candidates, making it unclear how many of the reformists would be allowed to run in the March 2 elections.

Kovakabian, who is one of the few reformists in parliament, said all the registered reformist candidates were politically and socially highly qualified, with some of them being university tutors.

The interior ministry recorded a total of 5,395 candidates, including 428 women and more than 1000 candidates for the capital Tehran. Ahmadinejad's sister Parvin Ahmadinejad is among those running.

The conservative faction, led by parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani and with a current majority in parliament, is favourite to win the election but faces challenges from Ahmadinejad's faction and from the reformists, who back former president Mohammad Khatami.

The pro-Ahmadinejad faction is branded by the conservatives as the 'deviant current' due to its alleged efforts to adopt a nationalistic - rather than an Islamic - approach in running the country.