On Monday night the Guardians Council, the highest appointed body that supervises ‎national elections, ended its work of reviewing the qualifications of candidates to the ‎March 14, 2008 parliamentary elections in Iran. It disqualified even more pro-reform ‎candidates, making it more difficult for them to present national lists for the elections. ‎While reformers in Tehran have managed to scramble a list of 30 candidates, other large ‎provinces such as Isfahan and Fars are struggling to come up even with an imperfect list.‎

Mehrdad Balafkan, the spokesman for the coalition of reformer groups in the province of ‎Isfahan said that out of its 98 candidates signed up to stand for elections, 79 were ‎rejected. “In the city of Isfahan, all pro-reform candidates were rejected practically ‎denying participation to us.‎

In a related news, in response to the rejection of pro-reform candidates in the province of ‎Fars, these candidates issues a statement in which they said, “In the province of Fars 83 ‎pro-reform candidates registered for 18 seats in 15 parliamentary districts. But despite ‎our talks with officials to prevent arbitrary decisions and fully implement existing ‎elections laws, volunteers whose acceptance appeared imminent have been disqualified ‎so that there are absolutely no pro-reform candidates for 11 parliamentary seats.”‎

But even though reformists have withheld presenting a list of candidates in these two ‎large provinces, in their statement they call on the public to participate in the forthcoming ‎elections so that they are not accused of “boycotting” the event.‎

In Tehran reformers finally announced that they would present a list of candidates, albeit ‎an incomplete one for the voters. So far the pro-reform coalition in Tehran has announced ‎‎23 names as its candidates. In addition to the withdrawal of Ali Eshraghi, the grandchild ‎of ayatollah Khomeini, Reza Amrollahi a former member of reformist president ‎Khatami’s cabinet too has resigned, reducing the number of available candidates to 22. ‎Earlier, another member of Khatami’s administration Mohammad Reza Aref (his first ‎deputy) too had announced his withdrawal from the race.‎