DUBAI, Feb 16 (NNN-STATE TV) – Iran\u2019s week-long parliamentary election campaign started on Thursday, a vote seen as a popularity test for the clerical establishment, at a time when relations with Washington are at their worst, since the 1979 Islamic revolution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Guardian Council, which must approve candidates, rejected around 6,850 moderate or conservative hopefuls, in favour of hardliners from among the 14,000 applicants seeking to contest the Feb 21 vote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 7,150 candidates who are running for parliamentary elections have started campaigning on Thursday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pragmatist President, Hassan Rouhani, criticised the disqualifications, but, like supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, he called for a high turnout, as the country faces challenges over its disputed nuclear programme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Khamenei, the final authority in Iran\u2019s complex system of clerical rule, backed the Guardian Council, saying, the next parliament was no place for those scared of speaking out against foreign enemies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tensions with the United States spiked since 2018, when President Donald Trump withdrew from Iran\u2019s 2015 nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The crisis worsened when Iran\u2019s most prominent military commander, Qassem Soleimani, was killed by a U.S. drone in Baghdad in Jan 3, which led to Iran retaliating against U.S. targets in Iraq on Jan 8. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pro-reform politicians said, they had no candidates to stand for 230 of the 290 seats in parliament, saying, Iranians\u2019 demands for a \u201cfree and fair\u201d election were not met because of the large numbers disqualified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Council cited various grounds for the rejections, such as \u201ccorruption and being unfaithful to Islam.\u201d Some 58 million Iranians out of 83 million are eligible to vote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While supporters of the establishment will vote for hard-line candidates, moderates are struggling to mobilise their supporters, who are disappointed with Rouhani\u2019s failure to ease social and political restrictions.– NNN-STATE TV <\/p>\n\n\n\n
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DUBAI, Feb 16 (NNN-STATE TV) – Iran\u2019s week-long parliamentary election campaign started on Thursday, a vote seen as a popularity test for the clerical establishment, at a time when relations with Washington are at their worst, since the 1979 Islamic revolution. The Guardian Council, which must approve candidates, rejected around 6,850 moderate or conservative hopefuls, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":62206,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208,215,286,194],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62204"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=62204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=62204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=62204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=62204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}