TEHRAN – Iran’s Guardian Council has said only candidates with a clean sheet in the 2009 unrest will be qualified to stand in the May presidential election. 

“The 2009 Finta (a strife that can stir sedition temptations) will be taken into account in vetting candidates,” said Abbasali Kadkhodaei, the council spokesman, told a press conference on Saturday. 

In Iran’s political discourse, Fitna came to be used to refer to unrests and seditions that followed the 2009 presidential elections.

Losing candidates and cohorts of their supporters took to the streets in Tehran, provoked by claims that the elections had been rigged.

Banks were stormed, dozens of citizens killed, buses torched and religious figures insulted. 

The spokesman rejected a question on if vetting will be influenced by past records of candidates’ relatives or acquaintances.  

“By the law, records of individuals are the only yardstick in the vetting process,” he said.  

The official, however, did not say if any objective parameters have been worked out for judging candidates, a subject that is open to interpretation.

Made up of six clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader and six lawyers introduced by the judiciary and elected by parliament, the Guardian Council is charged with vetting all electoral candidates, as enshrined in Iran’s Constitution. 

AK/PA