Khatami's Pre-Election Speech Orders

TEHRAN, Iran - A senior member of Iran's hard-line clerical establishment urged voters to pick anti-American candidates for parliament in a Friday speech seen as reflecting the views of the country's supreme leader.

Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said Iranians would "rush" to the polling stations on March 14 in support of those "whose record shows opposition to the United States."

"Our people vote for such people," Khatami told worshippers on the campus of Tehran University, where the Friday sermon is broadcast on state television and radio.

Khatami's remarks were one of the only public political statements since the start of campaigning Thursday, which was immediately followed by a two-day religious holiday.

Guardian Council: Iran's Candidate Weed Wacker

Reformists are expected to do poorly in the election because Iran's constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, barred more than 1,700 candidates, mostly reformists, from running. It left 4,500 mostly conservative candidates in the race, and only about 200 reformists.

The Other Khatami

The main election battle is now between moderate conservatives opposed to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and hard-liners who staunchly back his economic populism and anti-American foreign policy. Opponents have criticized Ahmadinejad's handling of the foundering economy as incompetent and his aggressive stance toward the West as counterproductive.

Reformist former President Mohammad Khatami urged people Thursday to vote for the remaining reformists as the only way to counter the hard-line establishment's efforts to strengthen its grip on power.

The hard-liners believe they are the "main current in the establishment and that anybody not supporting them is outside the establishment," said the former president, who is not related to Ahmad Khatami.

The reformists have to "disrupt this game," he said, by "participating in the elections" and fighting despite their small numbers.

Recycling and Civic Pride (uh, yeah, right)

Further weakening reformists, the hard-line-dominated parliament last month banned the publication of election posters with photographs of the candidates, saying it wanted to minimize waste of paper and to keep the city's wall clean.

The law was seen as another way to bolster hard-liners, who have more access to official media.

The Weed Wacker's Resume

Hard-liners regained control of the 290-seat legislature after the Guardian Council barred thousands of reformists from running in the last parliamentary elections, in 2004.