OxBlog

Wednesday, February 04, 2004

# Posted 7:35 PM by Patrick Belton  

IRAN WATCH: There are quite good round-ups of the latest events by MaroonBlog (also here), Regnum Crucis, and Free Thoughts (thanks to Winds of Change for pointing out these last few to me). Dead tree coverage includes WaPo, Economist, New Zealand NBR, and Voice of America. The day's big event was a call by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for a second review of about 2,000 candidates whose candidacies were banned by the Guardian Council; he also insisted the election would take place as scheduled on February 20th. The review will be undertaken by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, which is comparatively friendly to reformists. Commentators have speculated that Khamenei is grasping for a compromise solution which permits elections to continue with a minimum of protest and, in so doing, preserves as much legitimacy as possible for the unelected clerical organs of governance - the Guardian Council and his own office of Supreme Leader.

(P.S. We wrote a bit more about the subject a day or two ago here, too.)
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