Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, broke his silence Wednesday on the barring of reformist candidates from parliamentary races, saying the incumbents among them should be allowed to run.
Ayatollah Khamenei, meeting with members of the anti-reformist Guardian Council on Wednesday evening, also said nonincumbent candidates should be considered on their merits rather than rejected out of hand. "If their aptitude was proved in the past," he said, "the principle is that they are still competent unless it can be proved otherwise."
Khamenei has the final word over all state matters, and his intervention is expected to ease the mounting political confrontation.
The crisis developed on Sunday after the council rejected some 3,600 candidates, including 80 current members of Parliament. The elections are scheduled for Feb. 20.
Legislators taking part in a sit-in since the weekend defied President Mohammad Khatami's request to end their strike despite his vows to prevail against the council.
Rajabali Mazroui, a member of Parliament, said the strikers had unanimously decided to continue their action until their demand for a "free and fair election" was met.
"We are not negotiating only over the approval of the 80 current members of Parliament," Mazroui said. "More than 3,000 have been unfairly disqualified and we are against such a procedure."
The Parliament speaker, Mehdi Karoubi, a moderate, also came down on the reformists' side on Wednesday, saying he did not accept the attitude of the supervising board of the Guardian Council, which was responsible for disqualifying the candidates. "The Guardian Council must reverse its decision," he said. "There is no other choice."
The council is expected to make a final ruling at the end of the month. A final list of candidates is to be released in mid-February.
Ahmad Moradi was the first member of Parliament to resign in protest on Wednesday.
Khatami responded to a resignation threat from governors general around the country by hinting that he, too, might quit. The officials are demanding that the decision be reversed within a week. "If one day we are asked to leave, then we will leave together," he said Tuesday, the state-run television reported.
But there were doubts about how far Khatami would go in support of his allies.
"Unfortunately Mr Khatami has shown in the past that he uses a firm language but his actions are never as firm as he talks," said Mashalah Shamsolvaezin, a journalist and analyst.
"It seems that he is trying to reach a compromise with the Guardian Council," he said. "But people will not show much enthusiasm for the elections if the compromise means that only the current members of Parliament are allowed to run."
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