Ayatollah You No!
In February, the Reform Party of Iran achieved a sweeping victory in the parliament, winning 189 seats and turning the tide after many failed attempts. But their success was neither sweet nor long with the recent overturning of many of the Reform parliament wins to their rival Conservative Party candidates. Current President Mohammad Khatami, a representative of the Reform Party, now stares in the eyes of imminent progressive impossibility as the Council of Guardians, a conservative-led organization, steadily takes back the victories that the party has waited three years to achieve. Right now twelve parliamentary elections have been overturned, while sixty-four Reform candidates still wait for a second-round election to determine their fate.
Protesters exploded in the streets of Khalkhal earlier this week, destroying government offices and torching vehicles. Numerous arrests were made following the violent rampage, but they did not dissuade a similar but more reserved outcry by protesters in Damavand, a city to the northeast of the capital of Tehran. The state-run news media have released no explanation for these reversals of Reform Party victories, prompting continued protests and unrest in the nation of Iran.
The Reform Party, led by the incumbent President's brother, Mohammed-Reza Khatami, has been faced with problems arriving from other angles as well. A head cleric of a Reform Party office located in Qom was arrested earlier this week by order of a religious court. The court claimed that Hadi Ghabel made inappropriate criticisms of the Council of Guardians' decision not to allow several candidates to run in last year's first national election. Other Reform Party members, including Mohammed-Reza Khatami himself, have fallen under the harsh scrutiny of the courts, and have been asked to appear under charges issued by the state-run news media, the Council of Guardians, and law enforcement officials concerning the Reform Party newspaper's reporting of this year's elections.