Iran defends barring of candidates as campaign ends

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s electoral watchdog defends its decision to disqualify thousands of candidates for a crucial parliamentary election in two days, as a lackluster campaign nears its end.

Conservatives are expected to make an overwhelming resurgence in Friday’s vote, which comes after months of steeply escalating tensions between Iran and the United States.

Their gains would be made at the expense of those who back President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate conservative who was re-elected in 2017 promising people more freedoms and the benefits of engagement with the West.

But many people in Iran feel their lives have been crippled by an economic slump exacerbated by harsh US sanctions since President Donald Trump in 2018 pulled the United States out of the 2015 nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic.

A week of campaigning, which has seen posters go up but only a few low-key gatherings, comes to an end on Wednesday, before a day of silence on the eve of polling day.

The interior ministry says only around half of the 16,033 hopefuls who asked to run would be allowed to contest the election after the regime’s Guardian Council barred thousands, most of them moderates and reformists.

But the Council said it was “neutral” in its dealings with all political camps and acted in accordance with the law when it blocked their candidacy.

“The Guardian Council follows the laws and regulations parliament has passed at different times,” said its spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaee. “This time, just like at previous (elections), we have tried to properly follow the law,” he told a news conference.

“The Council has never had a political view… It approaches political factions with closed eyes. What it does judge is the evidence in the cases of the candidates and then it only acts in accordance with the law passed by parliament.”

— AFP