Iran’s president slams barring of candidates from elections

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s president slams the disqualification of thousands of people, including 90 current lawmakers, from running in upcoming parliamentary elections.

Although hard-liners are among those disqualified by the powerful Guardian Council, most of those rejected are reformist and moderate candidates, according to Tehran’s reformist newspaper Etemad.

President Hassan Rouhani appears to confirm this in his stinging critique of the council, which barred more than 9,000 from the over 14,000 people who had registered to run. Among them are 90 sitting lawmakers out of some 247 who registered to run for re-election.

Rouhani says it is not possible to run the country with just one faction in power.

“Do not tell the people that for every seat in parliament, there are 17, 170 or 1,700 candidates running in the election,” he says in a televised speech to the Cabinet. “Seventeen-hundred candidates from how many factions? Seventeen candidates from how many parties? From one party? This is not an election.”

He compares it to a store placing 1,000 copies of the same item on its shelves and telling customers they have a diverse selection to pick from.

“People need diversity,” Rouhani says.

Guardian Council spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei criticizes Rouhani’s remarks. In a tweet, he says that controversy around the vetting of candidates is nothing new, “but the president’s initiation of this anti-national project is regrettable.”

— AP