Iranian Students Protest Council Election Process

A simmering dispute over whether conservative hard-liners are trying to hijack an upcoming election boiled over Tuesday as thousands of student protesters, chanting “The people must be free!” briefly tussled with a smaller band of their conservative peers.

At the rally outside Tehran University, members of the larger group held aloft pictures of their hero, moderate President Mohammad Khatami, and faced off against students chanting loyalty to the country’s conservative supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Police watched--and filmed--but did not intervene.

Student leaders several times appealed to the audience to repeat only those chants approved from the podium, a warning apparently intended to minimize the risk of appearing disloyal to the state.

At issue is the nationwide election of Iran’s Council of Experts, a constitutional body that has the power to dismiss the supreme leader and choose a new one.

Although no one expects Khamenei to be dismissed or leave office soon, the Oct. 23 election is important because it could determine whether Iran’s army, police and judiciary remain under control, in the long run, of a conservative leader like him or a moderate such as Khatami.

But leftist and moderate factions in Iran have charged that their candidates weren’t even allowed to appear on the ballot for the Council of Experts, so they have in effect lost the election before the first vote is cast.

The final list of candidates is to be issued today, but according to preliminary information, about 250 of the 400 would-be candidates have been deemed unqualified.

Candidates are screened for their knowledge of religion and politics by the Council of Guardians, made up of 12 clerics and jurists appointed by Khamenei who, under Iran’s system of government, are meant to ensure that all the organs of government conform to Islamic values.

Critics charge that the Council of Guardians is not screening candidates so much on their mastery of religion, as required by the constitution, as on their conservatism.

An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 students attended the rally outside the campus, blocking a downtown intersection. They shouted “Viva Khatami!” and put up banners criticizing the Council of Guardians, charging that candidates had been barred for political reasons.

The main rally speaker was Hadi Khamenei, the younger brother of the supreme leader and a cleric who publishes the leftist newspaper Jahan-e-Islam. “Before, we kept quiet about such things for the good of the country,” he said. “But now times have changed, and we must speak out.”

Conservative politicians say that the process of choosing candidates for the Council of Experts was fair. Candidates whose qualifications were in doubt were allowed to sit for an examination that was graded blindly and objectively, said conservative lawmaker Hassan Ghafoorifard.

A government official close to Khatami said the president met with the Council of Guardians on Sunday but was unable to persuade it to open up the ballot to a wider range of candidates.

According to this official, leftist and moderate factions that support Khatami appear likely to boycott the vote in the hope that the conservatives will be embarrassed by a very low turnout--and that the Council of Guardians therefore will be compelled to be more inclusive in the future.