Jim Muir (BBC): Opening shots in Iran's power struggle

[Jack Rabbit]

From the BBC Online
Dated Wednesday January 14

Opening shots in Iran's power struggle
By Jim Muir
BBC correspondent in Tehran

Any national election in today's Iran provides a crucial test of the balance of power between the country's two broad political camps, the reformists and the conservatives.
To that extent they are always a bitterly contested watershed, setting the rough parameters within which the ongoing struggle will move on to the next stage.
Much of the real contest happens well in advance of polling day, in this instance 20 February for election to the seventh Majlis (parliament) since the Islamic Republic was established in 1979. Actual campaigning only lasts a week, and probably has little actual impact on the eventual outcome.
This election is no exception. Nearly six weeks before the ballot, a fierce battle erupted after it became clear that vetting committees under the unelected and highly conservative Council of Guardians (GC) had disqualified more than 3,500 of the 8,000 or so would-be candidates nationwide, the majority of them believed to be reformists.

Read more.