No more than a few weeks are left until the registration deadline for candidates running ‎for a seat in the Eight Majlis, and no more than three months is left until the election day ‎itself. The campaign season, however, has not gotten off the ground yet, and no ‎considerable jitter or movement is heard from the reformist camp yet. ‎

Whatever hustle and bustle one sees in society is not a deep-seated movement among the ‎masses, but rather limited to activities of political parties or groupings. ‎

Nevertheless, two important developments are taking place that have implications for ‎future actions. The first is the emergence of a consensus that the country is in a serious ‎condition, and hence the Eight Majlis must be a “national rescue” Majlis whose main ‎goal is to diffuse the current crisis by moderating the controversial actions of rulers. ‎Secondly, a more serious and concerted effort is under way to impose on the free will and ‎independence of voters. The first step in this effort is to disqualify critical candidates and ‎the second step is to prevent the names of people’s true elected representatives from ‎coming out of ballot boxes through manipulating and rigging votes and utilizing legal and ‎illegal methods under the supervision of the powerful duo of Jannati and Afshar. ‎

The simplest and least costly response to such efforts is to register, in Tehran and ‎provincial cities and towns, multiple layers of candidates who share similarities in their ‎outlook and ideology. ‎

The multi-layered registration of reformist and progressive candidates in the election of ‎‎24 Esfand, 1386 [March 14, 2008], is a correct policy that will, on the one hand, put the ‎freeness of the elections to the public opinion test, while on the other, guarantee a higher ‎degree of certainty for the qualification of reformist and progressive candidates. As a ‎result, more candidates are able to pass the Guardian Council’s filter and enter the race. ‎

However, it must be emphasized that the anti-authoritarian, democratic, freedom-seeking ‎and humanitarian movement, if at all genuinely reformist, must not participate in any ‎election until certain prerequisites are met, including the right to have plenty of ‎candidates and to preserve the integrity of the ballot box. Reformist and progressive ‎groups must not be content with participating in the elections only to acquire a few more ‎seats and to control a few more levers of power. ‎