President Mohammad Khatami warned Iran’s ruling conservatives on Wednesday that their restrictions on political freedoms are turning young Iranians against religion and the Islamic republic founded a quarter-century ago.
“Confronting people’s wishes and ignoring people’s demands in the name of religion [will] create disappointment among the young generation in the Islamic republic and, God forbid, their religion,” he said in a speech to thousands of Iranians marking the 25th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, led by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Khatami’s remarks came just days ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for Feb. 20.
Iran’s unelected 12-member Guardian Council has barred about 30 percent of the roughly 8,000 candidates who had signed up to run in the elections for the 290-seat parliament.
Many of those blocked from running were reformists, including about 80 who currently serve in parliament. The Guardian Council has said the candidates it barred were not qualified to stand.
But many reformists claim conservatives are merely trying to rig the elections to regain the parliament. Reformists captured control of the parliament in 2000 for the first time since the Islamic Revolution.
Last week, Khatami agreed to hold the elections as scheduled, despite calls for the reformist-led Interior Ministry to postpone them. At the same time, he said the vote would not be fair because of the mass disqualification of reformist candidates.
“Elections are a symbol of democracy if they are performed correctly,” he told the crowd gathered Wednesday in a large square to commemorate the fall of Iran’s Western-backed monarchy in 1979. “If this is restricted, it’s a threat to the nation and the system. This threat is difficult to reverse.
“Blocking the demands of the people and their right to vote . . . causes frustration, especially among the young,” Khatami said. “Whether I succeed or not and whether obstacles keep preventing me from fulfilling my promises or not, I know no other path and won’t choose a path other than reforms.”
Khatami agreed to hold the elections after the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say on all matters, ordered them to go ahead as scheduled.
