The Iranian regime was yesterday facing fresh protests after powerful clerics disqualified reformists from standing in next month's presidential elections and approved just six, mostly hardline candidates.
Iran's top political watchdog, the Guardians Council, announced late Sunday that just six out of 1,014 would-be candidates would be allowed to stand in the June 17 polls.
Eliminated was the main pro-reform candidate Mostafa Moin, leaving religious right-wingers all but certain of taking over from incumbent reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
Those approved were powerful former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, seen as a more pragmatic conservative and the frontrunner in the race, four hardliners and one centrist cleric.
As expected all of the 89 women seeking to stand were also disqualified. The Guardians Council had said it would bar women from the presidency. A record 1,014 people had registered for a chance to stand in the presidential polls, but all were subject to screening by the Guardians Council -- an unelected body has the power to vet all laws and candidates for public office.
Challenging Rafsanjani will be four hardliners: Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Ali Larijani, Mahmud Ahmadi Nejad and Mohsen Rezai and the moderate former parliament speaker Mehdi Karoubi. Qalibaf, 44, quit as police chief last month, and previously served as a head of the air force section of the powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps, a bastion of regime right-wingers. He has presented himself as Rafsanjani's main rival, an assertion that appears to be backed up by informal opinion polls in the Iranian press.
Larijani, 48, a former state broadcast boss and a Revolutionary Guards veteran, currently serves as an advisor to the Islamic republic's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad is currently Tehran's mayor. Another Revolutionary Guards veteran, he is seen as a far right wing ideologue. The other hardline candidate is Rezai, a 51-year-old former chief of the Revolutionary Guards.
The disqualification of Moin leaves Karoubi, who is 68, as the most moderate candidate. Seen as a centrist, Karoubi served as parliament speaker before reformers were ousted from the Majlis in the February 2004 elections.
Moin, a 54-year-old former higher education minister and qualified medical doctor, was the candidate of choice of the Participation Front, Iran's main reformist party which is headed by Khatami's brother, Mohammad Reza.
Moin, who quit the cabinet in 2003, had previously been at loggerheads with powerful right-wingers -- mainly due to his vocal support of student pro-democracy protestors -- and his disqualification had been expected.
Veteran dissident Ibrahim Yazdi was also disqualified. The 74-year-old heads the banned Iran Freedom Movement, and used his registration appearance at the interior ministry to renew calls for the "release of all political prisoners."
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