Elections -- Iranian style

Scripps Howard: Faced with an election, Iran's ruling hard-line clerics did what authoritarian regimes always do -- try to rig the results. The clerics seem immune to embarrassment but they have certainly embarrassed their country.
The clerics have been alarmed at the growing success of reform parties in presidential, parliamentary and local elections. And with good reason: The reform these parties are seeking is an end to 25 years of socially repressive and economically incompetent theocratic rule.
Iran is scheduled to hold parliamentary elections Feb. 20 and, were these elections free and fair, the reformers would likely make even further gains.
Power in Iran is concentrated in a 12-member Guardian Council appointed by Iran's supreme ruler, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The nation's popularly elected president, a reformer, and parliament are relatively powerless, but a convincing victory would put pressure on the Council to begin ceding its tight control of the judiciary, security services and press.
Screening process
The Council must approve all political candidates. So far it has barred 2,400 reform candidates from running, 87 of them sitting members of parliament. Favored hard-line candidates, of course, have been blessed with a spot on the ballot.
The result is that 124 legislators in the 290-seat parliament have resigned in protest. The Interior Ministry has tried, so far unsuccessfully, to cancel the elections. And the president and the head of the largest reform party say they will organize a voter boycott if the elections proceed.
There was an attempt at a last-minute compromise. The Intelligence Ministry reviewed the list of 2,400 disqualified candidates and recommended 600 names be reinstated. The compromise fell apart when the Council approved only 51.