Iran's top dissident says clerics must be held accountable

The leader of Iran's ruling clerics must be made more accountable to reform demands and should shed some powers to break a "vicious circle" of control, said the most prominent dissident lawmaker and brother of the country's president.

Mohammad Reza Khatami -- who was deputy parliament speaker and among more than 2,400 candidates blacklisted from today's elections -- offered glimpses of a new high-stakes gambit: trying to pressure Iran's supreme leader and the power base that controls everything from foreign policy to the media.

"They have no accountability to any part of the government and to the people ... We have a vicious circle here," he said Wednesday at the headquarters of his party, the Islamic Participation Front.

The strategy of directly challenging Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei could win applause from many Iranians frustrated by stalled efforts for more political and social openness.

But it carries clear risks. The Islamic leadership has come down hard before on those perceived as threats to the system.

On Tuesday, Khatami and other pro-reform lawmakers made public a letter sent to Khamenei accusing him of allowing freedoms to be "trampled in the name of Islam."

The letter served as a parting salvo by banned reform candidates calling the elections a "parliamentary coup" and urging for a voter boycott. It also was a taboo-breaking missive against the country's top religious and political authority -- whose supporters say holds divine right to rule.

Khatami Khamenei should dismantle some of his power structure to allow elected officials room to make key decisions.

"They know what the people want and, because of this, I think they should respond to this will of the people ... even if they don't like it," said Khatami, whose brother, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, has lost a great deal of appeal after backing down in his attempts to postpone the elections.

He added that reformers want to reach a point "for people to believe they could change the leader."

It would be a huge challenge.

Khamenei his inner circle have vast and powerful resources, including militia forces and the judiciary. In recent years, conservatives have detained or intimidated hundreds of reformers and muzzled dozens of publications.

Late two reformist newspapers, Yas-e-No and Sharq, were ordered to suspend publication and top editors and staff were detained by judiciary agents for publishing portions of the reformers' letter to Khamenei, said Issa Sahakhiz, member of the Iranian branch of the Committee to Protect Journalists.