Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has rejected the postponement of the February 20 elections demanded by reformists following the barring of hundreds of their candidates, members of parliament and press reports said Wednesday.
Two MPs told AFP that Khamenei wanted the polls to take place on the scheduled date, following talks Tuesday with reformists President Mohammad Khatami and parliament speaker Mehdi Karoubi on the current political crisis.
Despite his refusal, "the negotiations were positive and there are encouraging prospects," one MP said, hinting that more of the rejected candidates may have their disqualification's overturned.
The conservative Council of Guardians vetting body ruled out some 2,500 candidates out of 8,000, most of them reformists and including some 80 sitting members of parliament, accusing them of lack of respect for Islam and the constitution.
The move plunged the Islamic republic, riven by hostility between reformists and conservatives, into probably its worst crisis since the revolution that overthrew the Shah 25 years ago.
Some 125 reformist MPs have put in their resignations, threatening to deprive the Majlis of a quorum, along with all of the country's provincial governors, and officials of the pro-reform interior ministry have refused to organise polls that are not free, fair and competitive.
Another MP said Wednesday that Tuesday's meeting agreed that the Guardians should satisfy the demands of Khatami and Karoubi within 48 hours, but he sounded less optimistic than his colleague.
The pro-reform daily Shargh said the two reformist leaders had proposed that the Guardians Council be left to organise the elections themselves instead of the government if they could not be postponed, but Khamenei had also rejected this proposal.
The conservative daily Hamshahri for its part said it had been agreed that the list of candidates should be revised in those constituencies where disqualification's had left no competition between the various factions.
The state news agency IRNA quoted reformist deputy Jalil Sazegarnejad as saying that Khatami was to meet Wednesday with officials tasked with organising the elections.
He would also see representatives of the dozens of MPS who have been staging a sit-in at parliament since the Guardians Council decision was revealed on January 11, and of the 2nd of Khordad Front, the coalition of 18 pro-reform parties which support the president.
A cabinet meeting was also scheduled to take place Wednesday.
Meanwhile IRNA quoted a letter from the 28 provincial governors reaffirming that they would not organise elections that were "illicit, iniquitous and closed to competition" and demanding a postponement.
The letter, published at the initiative of the interior ministry to which the governors are answerable, echoed the stance of Khatami and his government that they would only agree to stage elections that were "free, fair and competitive."
Reformists fear that they are doomed to lose control of parliament and hence of the government, saying that even if many disqualification's are overturned they would have no time to organise their election campaigns.