( dpa ) - A senior Iranian Ayatollah criticized the process for Friday's parliamentary elections in Iran and warned of "popular dissent" and a "deepening divide" in the country.
"The failure of useful people with experience to secure their candidacy, just like the strong pressures that have been placed on newspapers and journalists, as well as women and students, causes the deepening divide between the people and power," Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri told Adnkronos International AKI at his residence in Qom, a religious city 130 kilometres south of Tehran.
More than half of mainly reformist candidates were disqualified from running in the elections by the senate-like Guardian Council for being disloyal to the ruling Islamic system and for secularism.
"The people are already unhappy about runaway inflation and rising unemployment, and these unwise decisions have done nothing but fuel the popular dissent," he told AKI.
Montazeri has been banished from politics since the late revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, dismissed him as his designated heir in March 1989 for criticizing the Islamic system.
Despite his political isolation and house arrest in the last 19 years, Montazeri has remained a respected religious figure and one of Iran's most acknowledged Marjae Taqlids, or imitation sources, to whom Moslems refer for religious guidance.
While reformist circles support Montazeri, the hardliners brand him as secular and condemn his critical approach toward Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Ayatollah Khomeini as the country's supreme leader in June 1989.
"A parliament chosen under these conditions and without genuine and fair competition, surely cannot be representative of the majority of Iranians, who will see themselves governed by a uniformed minority incapable of responding to their needs," Montazeri said.
The Ayatollah also criticized the foreign policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and said "the errors committed by the Islamic Republic and the gratuitous provocations of the current government are the basis for the lack of international trust in our country.
"These errors have brought about an international cohesion that has been manifested in the sanctions against Iran with worrying consequences for the population," Montazeri said.
The Grand Ayatollah said he hoped that "the government, bearing in mind the current difficulties, renounces its emotive and extremist policies and strives to overcome the current isolatio, to prevent political and economic pressures from crushing the country and the population."