Iranian elections to go ahead
2004-01-27 15:20
Tehran - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami vowed on Tuesday that next month's parliamentary elections will go ahead as scheduled despite a crisis over candidate disqualifications, the official news agency IRNA reported.
"The government's plan is to hold healthy, free and competitive elections and we will definitely hold such an election," the embattled president was quoted as saying.
"To shut down the elections means to shut down democracy and God does not want such a thing for our people," he asserted, the day after his cabinet warned the government may refuse to organise the February 20 polls.
"The Iranian nation, even at a time when part of the country was under enemy occupation and bombings, held elections firmly and calmly," Khatami said, referring to the Islamic republic's 1980-88 war with Iraq.
- SAPA