Speaking of elections

The 12-member Guardian Council of Iran - made up of clerics and Islamic lawyers chosen by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the nation's supreme leader - is empowered to ensure the actions of the Irani parliament comply with Islamic principles.

Recently, the council disqualified more than 2,000 reform-minded candidates from running in February's parliamentary elections.

In response, 83 members of parliament who were on the banned list have staged a sit-in at the parliament building. More recently, reformist President Mohammad Khatami has threatened the resignation of his entire administration if the disqualification of reformist candidates is not lifted, saying if one goes, "we all go."

As the BBC reported on Wednesday, someone has blinked.

Iran's supreme leader has called for a review of the ban on thousands of candidates standing for elections.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged the move at a meeting of the hardline Guardian Council, state television said. ...

He went so far as to back the candidacies of the 83 deputies who have refused to leave the Iranian parliament, the Majlis, in protest at their being banned from standing for re-election.

"If their aptitude was proved in the past, the principle is that they are still competent unless it can be proved otherwise," he said. ...

The BBC's Jim Muir in Tehran says his careful words provided cover for the Guardian Council to think again and change its mind on at least some of the disqualifications without losing face.

How far the Guardian Council will bend remains to be seen, as does whether it will bend far enough to satisfy the protestors. But it's clear that the reform movement in Iran is not only still alive, it is a force that the fundamentalist clerics who remain at the top of the political heap literally cannot ignore.