Iran's interior minister takes on hard-liners ahead of vote

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's reformist interior minister ordered the closure of offices set up by hard-liners to screen candidates for next year's legislative elections.

Members of the hard-line Guardian Council have vowed to reject reformist candidates who seek major changes, and having the offices would allow the council to learn the views of would-be candidates.

Abdolvahed Mousavi Lari told provincial governors to shut down the supervisory offices of the Guardian Council throughout the country, the government-run daily Iran reported Sunday. The council has quietly been establishing the candidate review offices in recent months.

"Activities of the supervising offices of the Guardian Council are a violation of the law because they have not been approved by the Supreme Administrative Council nor the Parliament," Lari told the paper a day earlier. "There is no legal basis for such offices."

Interior Ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani, contacted by The Associated Press on Sunday, confirmed the report. The elections are scheduled for February.

The hard-line Guardian Council and the Interior Ministry in the elected administration of the reformist President Mohammad Khatami, responsible for holding the elections, have previously had a tug-of-war over the list of candidates for elections.

Iran has for years been embroiled in a power struggle between elected reformers who support Khatami's program of peaceful democratic reforms and hard-liners who resist them through the powerful but unelected bodies they control, including the Guardian Council.

Since Khatami took office in 1997, hard-liners have used their control of unelected bodies such as the Guardian Council and the judiciary to block all reform legislation, shut down more than 90 liberal publications and detain dozens of pro-reform activists and writers.