DUBAI - A powerful Islamic screening body yesterday passed judgment on more than 200 Iranians vying for President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's job, rejecting all but four as candidates to stand in the election on May 23rd.
The Guardian Council, a body of six clerics and six lawyers responsible for screening election candidates, said in a statement reported by Iran's official news agency IRNA that only four presidential hopefuls out of 238 had passed scrutiny.
It named them as Mr Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri, who is speaker of the Majlis (parliament), Mr Mohammad Mohammadi Reyshahri, a former intelligence minister, Mr Mohammad Khatami, a former minister of culture and Islamic guidance, and Mr Reza Zavarei, deputy head of the judiciary. The rejected candidates included nine women, one of them the daughter of one of the ayatollahs who led the 1979 Islamic revolution that toppled the Shah. The nine had sought a legal ruling on women's right to run for president for the first time. A public opinion poll published in the daily Tehran Times yesterday gave 40.8 per cent of popular support to Mr Nateq Nouri, 33.8 per cent to Mr Khatami and 8.2 per cent to Mr Reyshahri.