Iran lets Khomeini grandson run in elections

Iran has allowed revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's grandson and some other reformists to fight parliamentary elections after initially disqualifying them, reports said on Wednesday.

Ali Eshraghi was one of more than 2,200 mainly reformist candidates disqualified in the initial phase of vetting, to the dismay of moderates, but has now been reinstated by the hard-line Guardians Council.

The Guardians Council, Iran's main vetting body, announced on Tuesday that 280 of the candidates disqualified in the original vetting were being reinstated to stand in the March 14 elections.

The official IRNA news agency said five sitting reformist MPs who had initially been disqualified were now being allowed to stand.

Two leading loyalists of reformist former president Mohammad Khatami -- the former head of IRNA Abdollah Nasseri and ex-education minister Morteza Haji -- were also being reinstated, the Mehr news agency reported.

The reinstatement of the candidates came after prominent conservative and reformist figures complained bitterly about the scale of the disqualifications, which Khatami described as a "catastrophe".

The mass disqualifications were also criticized by another grandson of Khomeini, Hassan, who is in charge of the late leader's mausoleum and is a top figure in the Islamic republic despite having no official position.

The comments prompted an extraordinary attack against Hassan Khomeini by the Nosazi (Restoration) hard-line website.

In a piece entitled: "The secrets about the rosy cheeks of Seyyed Hassan Khomeini" it made allegations about him owning a BMW car, having a personal steam sauna and living in affluent north Tehran.

This vitriolic attack on such a senior personality prompted outrage throughout the Iranian press and even the hard-line Kayhan daily warned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that some people were going too far.

Reformists had been hoping to challenge conservative dominance of parliament in the elections but after the initial disqualifications said they could be competitive in only 10 percent of seats.