Iran's pro-reform parliament has asked a constitutional watchdog of religious hard-liners to rule on whether a woman can run for president in the Islamic Republic, the official IRNA news agency reported late on Monday.
The hard-line Guardian Council, which has the power to veto candidates it deems unfit to run for office, has in the past rejected aspiring women candidates for the presidency, although it has allowed them to run for parliament.
Iran's constitution says the president should be an Iranian, a Muslim and a "political 'rejal'". Rejal, an Arabic word, literally means "men", but some senior clerics in Iran say it could also refer to women.
"We have asked the Guardian Council whether a woman capable of undertaking the presidential post can apply for candidacy or if it has religious reservations," IRNA quoted Tehran lawmaker Fatemeh Rakei as saying.
Political analysts expect the Guardian Council to rule that women are constitutionally barred from standing for president.
The second term of pro-reform President Mohammad Khatami, whose government has made some efforts to improve women's rights in the oil-producing nation of 66 million people, expires in mid-2005. Khatami is ineligible to stand for re-election.
The surprise award last year of the Nobel Peace prize to Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi generated some initial speculation that she may run for president in the future.
Ebadi said last December she saw no reason why a woman could not be president but insists she has no political ambitions herself.
The Guardian Council flexed its vetting muscles earlier this year, barring more than 2,000 mostly reformist candidates from standing in parliamentary elections last month.
Reformists decried the mass disqualification's as tantamount to rigging the election and many boycotted the vote.
Conservative candidates who accuse reformists of trying to turn Iran into a secular state, easily gained a majority in the 290-seat assembly, reversing their 2000 election loss to reformists.