Radicals, Extremists Vie For Control Of Iran

February 12, 2004 | Issue 40•06

TEHRAN—As the Feb. 20 parliamentary election approaches, hard-line conservative religious radicals and fundamentalist Islamic extremists are stepping up their disparate campaigns. "It's up to the people: Does the future of Iran lie in the hands of the far-right extremists or the far-far-right radicals?" said Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, head of the hard-line Guardian Council that recently banned thousands of moderate candidates from the election. "Will the old-school clerics win, or is the country ready for a new stripe of fundamentalists who will take authoritarianism in an entirely different direction?" Jannati urged all of Iran's citizens to get out and make their votes count.