Solat Mortazavi, the head of the Election Headquarters in the Interior Ministry, identified those three parties as the Islamic Iran Partnership Party, which was formed in 1997 as the vehicle of support for President Moham-mad Khatami, the Mujahideen of the Islamic Revolution (MOIR), which was formed shortly after the revolution as a leftist party, and the Liberation Movement of Iran, which was formed in the 1960s by Mehdi Bazargan as an effort to combine Islam with European-style social democracy.
The announcement was no surprise as those three parties are officially illegal.
The Green Movement of reformists has said that both of its leaders, Mir-Hossain Musavi and Mehdi Karrubi, favor a boycott of the March elections. The chief opposition to a boycott seems to come from among the 40-plus members of the 290-seat Majlis who are reformists.
Mortazavi said only those political organizations that have been licensed by the government will be allowed to publish lists of candidates. The main conservative groupings that have recently been formed to put together a list of endorsed “principleists” have not, however, been announced as licensed. It isn’t clear if they have applied and are awaiting licenses. Mortazavi’s comment may have been intended to move them into action.
The United Front of Principleists has been trying to bring all principleists under one banner. It is led by Ali-Akbar Velayati, a former foreign minister and current foreign policy adviser to the Supreme Leader, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, a former Majlis speaker, and Habibollah Asghar-Oladi, long-time leader of a party that is the chief voice of the bazaaris. The group just announced that it would formally begin its activities this week.
But the Islamic Revolution Resistance Front is a rival group of principleists that has not yet agreed to come under the United Front’s umbrella. Velayati last week said he doubted it would ever do so and thus two rival lists of principleists are likely. The main leaders of the Resistance Front are current Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani and Tehran Mayor Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf.
The supporters of President Ahmadi-nejad are not in either group and are likely to promote their own list of endorsed candidates.