Some 550 candidates cleared to run in Iran's parliamentary election have pulled out because thousands of reformist candidates have been banned, the interior ministry was quoted as saying on Saturday.
Reformists have predicted Iran's Feb. 20 parliamentary poll will be a "sham" and a "bloodless coup" because the 12-man Guardian Council, an unelected conservative group, has banned more than 2,500 of the 8,200 aspiring candidates, mainly reformists.
Those blocked include 80 mem-bers of the 290-seat parliament.
"Up until now 550 candidates have withdrawn from the election," said the reformist Yas-e No newspaper, quoting the interior ministry.
The 550 candidates were following in the steps of the country's largest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), which had already said it would boycott the election. It was not immediately clear how many of them were members of the IIPF.
A conservative political group dismissed accusations the election had been rigged. Members of the newly formed Alliance for the Advancement of Islamic Iran (AAII), which is putting forward candidates for Tehran's 30 parliamentary seats, defended the candidate bans.
"The disqualifications were carried out within the framework of our law," said AAII candidate Gholamali Hadadadel.
"Therefore, we don't think this is an unfair election," Hadadadel, who is leader of the minority conservative faction in the outgoing parliament, told a news conference.
Reformist allies of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, who won a large majority in 2000 parliamentary elections, argue they will be unable to compete for over half of parliament's 290 seats.
Those barred include around 80 current legislators, many of whom were deemed to lack loyalty to Islam.
Analysts say conservatives, who in contrast with reformists reject any watering down of the Islamic political system imposed after the 1979 Islamic revolution, stand to benefit from the candidate bans and reformist election boycotts.
Conservatives, who can count on a hard core of loyal support, will also likely profit from the expected low turnout among Iran's 46 million eligible voters, many of whom have grown disillusioned with Khatami's inability to overcome stiff hardline resistance to his reformist agenda.
Turnout plunged to just 11 percent in Tehran in city council elections last February, allowing conservatives to sweep reformists out of the council altogether -- a result which AAII members said was a model for next week's poll.
"The parliamentary vote is the second step after the city council elections that our society is taking," Hadadadel said.
Sitting beneath a campaign banner which read "Development is not only our dream, it's our programme" AAII candidates said they would prioritize economic issues in the next parliament.
Reformists have been criticized by many Iranians for focusing too heavily on political and social reforms, which they were unable to implement, while living standards fell.
AAII candidate Ahmad Tavakoli, who stood against Khatami in 1997 elections, said his party was open to a restoration of ties with arch-enemy Washington, broken off in 1980, provided US officials "change their dictatorial behavior toward Iran."
Shamans in Peru on Monday gathered for an annual New Year’s ritual where they made predictions for the year to come, including illness for US President Donald Trump and the downfall of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. “The United States should prepare itself because Donald Trump will fall seriously ill,” Juan de Dios Garcia proclaimed as he gathered with other shamans on a beach in southern Lima, dressed in traditional Andean ponchos and headdresses, and sprinkling flowers on the sand. The shamans carried large posters of world leaders, over which they crossed swords and burned incense, some of which they stomped on. In this
Near the entrance to the Panama Canal, a monument to China’s contributions to the interoceanic waterway was torn down on Saturday night by order of local authorities. The move comes as US President Donald Trump has made threats in the past few months to retake control of the canal, claiming Beijing has too much influence in its operations. In a surprising move that has been criticized by leaders in Panama and China, the mayor’s office of the locality of Arraijan ordered the demolition of the monument built in 2004 to symbolize friendship between the countries. The mayor’s office said in
‘TRUMP’S LONG GAME’: Minnesota Governor Tim Walz said that while fraud was a serious issue, the US president was politicizing it to defund programs for Minnesotans US President Donald Trump’s administration on Tuesday said it was auditing immigration cases involving US citizens of Somalian origin to detect fraud that could lead to denaturalization, or revocation of citizenship, while also announcing a freeze of childcare funds to Minnesota and demanding an audit of some daycare centers. “Under US law, if an individual procures citizenship on a fraudulent basis, that is grounds for denaturalization,” US Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement. Denaturalization cases are rare and can take years. About 11 cases were pursued per year between 1990 and 2017, the Immigrant Legal Resource
‘RADICALLY DIFFERENT’: The Kremlin said no accord would be reached if the new deal with Kyiv’s input did not remain within the limits fixed by the US and Russia in August Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida this weekend, but Russia on Friday accused him and his EU backers of seeking to “torpedo” a US-brokered plan to stop the fighting. Today’s meeting to discuss new peace proposals comes amidst Trump’s intensified efforts to broker an agreement on Europe’s worst conflict since World War II. The latest plan is a 20-point proposal that would freeze the war on its current front line, but open the door for Ukraine to pull back troops from the east, where demilitarized buffer zones could be created, according to details revealed by
RSS