Iran sorts through election candidates, several already rejected

Jan 10, 2012, 12:24 GMT

Tehran - Iran has started sorting through the names of candidates who have registered to contest Iran's March parliamentary election, with several of them having already been rejected by the Interior Ministry, state media reported Tuesday.

Almost 5,400 candidates registered last month to compete for the 290 seats that will be contested in the March 2 parliamentary elections, including more than 1,000 candidates for at least 30 seats in the capital, Tehran - politically, the most important district.

According to the Interior Ministry, out of the 1,066 registered candidates for Tehran, 319 have either withdrawn their candidacy or were rejected by the ministry.

The ministry gave no further details, but, according to some local press sources, some of the candidates were rejected due to their opposition to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

'It seems the main criterion for confirmation of the candidates was their support for the government, and anybody critical towards the government has been rejected,' said Dariush Qanbari, a lawmaker whose candidacy for another four-year legislation term was rejected.

Qanbari told the labour news agency ILNA that he had no idea upon which law his candidacy had been rejected.

Another lawmaker, Qodratollah Alikhani, told ILNA that his candidacy also seemed to have been rejected. He said it was likely for the same reasons cited by Qanbari.

'The election headquarters (in the Interior Ministry and the Tehran governor's office) belong to the government and it seems that all critics of the government have been rejected,' Alikhani said.

'But this was not unexpected, as eventually, this government simply doesn't want us (critics),' the cleric added.

According to unconfirmed reports, several other lawmakers also critical of Ahmadinejad and his government have been rejected.

The Interior Ministry has not yet disclosed the names of the rejected candidates.

Under Iran's constitution, the conservative Guardian Council - an ideological watchdog of six clerics and six lawyers - also has to check the candidates' loyalty to the country's Islamic system before approving them.

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