IRAN: Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, yesterday called on a hardline body to review the cases of thousands of candidates barred from standing for parliamentary elections, state television reported.
Ayatollah Khamenei, whose intervention could defuse a political stand-off that has prompted dozens of top reformist officials to threaten to resign, also said incumbent deputies should not have been disqualified unless there was solid proof against them.
"There are legal methods and the Guardian Council has enough time to review the cases carefully. . . to prevent the violation of anyone's rights," state television quoted Ayatollah Khamenei as saying in a meeting with Guardian Council members.
"Those who have been qualified before should be qualified [now] unless the contrary can be proved," he added.
The Guardian Council, a hardline constitutional watchdog under the direct control of Ayatollah Khamenei, has disqualified nearly half of 8,200 candidates for the February 20th vote.
The vast majority of those vetoed are reformist allies of President Mohammad Khatami, including more than 80 of parliament's current 290 lawmakers.
Around 80 MPs yesterday rebuffed an appeal by President Khatami to suspend a four-day-old sit-in protest at parliament.
"It's natural for us to continue because we haven't achieved our demands yet," Mr Mohammad Reza Khatami, younger brother of the president and deputy speaker of parliament, told Reuters.
The decision to extend the protest was a further blow to the weakened authority of President Khatami, who is also under pressure from cabinet colleagues and state governors to adopt a firmer stance - and to resign, with them, if the bans are not rescinded.
Another MP said deputies did not believe President Khatami would resign over the crisis, and might urge him to postpone the election if the Guardian Council did not back down.
Even close allies of President Khatami, who swept to office in 1997 promising to promote civil rights and the rule of law, criticise him for failing to stand up to hardliners in the judiciary and Guardian Council who have blocked most of his reforms.