TEHRAN, Jan 16: A senior Iranian conservative leader said on Friday that a controversial electoral blacklist barring large numbers of reformists from contesting next month's key parliamentary elections would be carefully revised.

In his Friday prayer sermon at Tehran University, Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani nonetheless stood by the right of the Guardians Council. "Everywhere around the world there are boundaries, and in our constitution there are restrictions on anyone who wants to be elected," he said.

Ayatollah is a former member of the Guardians Council and he currently sits on the Expediency Council - Iran's top political arbitration body which like the Guardians Council is also controlled by conservatives.

On Sunday, the Councils drew allegations that it was trying to rig the Feb 20 parliament elections after it disqualified almost half of the 8,000 people seeking to stand for the Majlis.

Most on the blacklist were reformists, among them some 83 incumbent MPs and some of the movement's most prominent figures. For six days, furious pro-reform MPs have been staging a sit-in parliament, while reformist President Mohammad Khatami threatened to lead a mass resignation of ministers, MPs and provincial governors.

On Wednesday Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei intervened, ordering the 12 members of the Guardians Council to review their blacklist and be less stringent, notably in the case of those currently in parliament.

"The Leader gave us some comments," Ayatollah Kashani told worshippers here. "This is an aid to incumbent deputies in the Majlis, and it is a correct aid. The Guardians Council is obliged to act according to the comments of the Supreme Leader."

The Guardians Council is due to make a final ruling on the disqualifications at the end of the month, and a definitive list of candidates is due to be released around Feb 12.

And according to the student news agency ISNA, another dispute between reformists and conservatives was also brewing over vote counting. The reformist-run interior ministry, which is charged with running elections, is trying to introduce computerised vote counting, but Tehran's governor, Ali Owsat Hashemi, said this had been rejected by the Guardians Council.

"The Guardians Council said although they have not seen the software for the computerised counting of the votes, they noted a few faults to the plan," he said, but added that "since the law gives us this option, we will not follow what they have asked us." But this could yet pose a serious problem, given that the Council also has the responsibility of validating the election result.-AFP