January 13, 2004

Iranian government threatens to dissolve

Iran's reformist government has threatened to resign amid denunciations Tuesday of a hard-line panel's disqualification of candidates for next month's elections who are allied with the reformist president.

In a deepening of the nation's political crisis, the official Islamic Republic News Agency quoted Vice President Mohammad Sattarifar as saying late Monday, "if the government feels that it cannot fulfill its responsibilities in protecting legitimate freedoms, such as defending the rights of the nation for a free and fair elections, then it does not believe that there is any reason to stay in power."

The statement is the strongest yet indicating President Mohammad Khatami's government may be willing to resign if it cannot ensure free elections. However, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has promised to intervene if the crisis is not resolved soon.

The Guardian Council, an un-elected hard-line constitutional watchdog, has barred over 3,000 of the 8,200 people - including more than 80 sitting lawmakers - who filed papers to run for a seat in the 290-member parliament. Lawmakers have said all of those who where disqualified were reformists.
Iran's largest reformist party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front, meanwhile said in a statement that disqualifying the reform candidates amounted to treason because it damages Iran's international credibility and will result in "sham elections."

"We consider the disqualifications national treason and an attempt to transform the Islamic Republic into a despotic establishment," the party said in its statement. "Disqualifications deny the people their constitutional right to choose and be chosen. ... Hard-liners seek to set up a sham parliament through sham elections."

Bless their hearts!
The Iranian people know all there is to know now about "sham elections" and "despotic establishments" after more than 20 years of living under an Islamist mullah-ocracy.
Now that they've had a taste of a little reform, watched their neighbors Iraq and Afghanistan be liberated and begin to implement democratic reforms under our tender care and since they've seen that the "Great Satan America" can be Iran's friend, too, when they suffer adversity like the Bam earthquake, they don't want to go back to a hermetic, repressive theocratic police state.
And who can blame them?
Sounds as if the 2nd, real Revolution is about to go down in Iran--may the people win in a bloodless coup, the mullahs and the Ayatollah lose (as they should have in '79) and let's let Freedom Ring in Persia!
God be with you, liberty-loving Iranians!