Published: 02.02.2004
By Nazila Fathi
THE NEW YORK TIMES
TEHRAN, Iran - More than one-third of Iran's parliament resigned Sunday to protest
a sweeping ban on candidates running in the parliamentary election later this
month. The defiant move threatened to plunge Iran's political system into chaos.
One by one, angry lawmakers, who have held a three-week sit-in at the huge parliament
building, marched up to the podium and handed their resignations to the speaker.
In an emotional statement read aloud during Sunday's session of parliament and
broadcast live across the nation on Iranian radio, the members who resigned
accused powerful conservatives of seeking to impose a religious dictatorship
like that of the Taliban, who were overthrown by American-led forces in Afghanistan.
"We cannot continue to be present in a parliament that is not capable of
defending the rights of the people and that is unable to prevent elections in
which the people cannot choose their representatives," the statement said.
Mohammad Reza Khatami, the leader of the main reformist party and the brother
of Iran's reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, was among those who resigned.
He warned of a conservative coup supported by the military.
The resignations were a move typical of the brinkmanship that marks Iranian
politics, to try to get the hard-liners to back down three weeks before a crucial
election that will determine the future of the reform movement in Iran.
A pro-democracy Iranian student group said Sunday that it had sought permission
to hold public demonstrations on Wednesday to protest the ban.
The mass resignation coincided with what was to be a day of national celebration,
the 25th anniversary of the return to Iran of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from
exile to lead a revolution in the name of Islam bringing an end to the 2,500-year
monarchy.
The resignations came a day after the president announced that his negotiations
with senior religious officials had failed to resolve the crisis.
Last month, the hard-line Guardian Council barred more than 2,000 candidates,
including 87 current members of parliament, from competing for the 290-seat
assembly in elections scheduled for Feb. 20.