WASHINGTON, Feb 20: Risking a nationalist backlash, the United States criticized Iran's parliamentary elections on Friday as unfair because hardliners had banned many reformist candidates.

"Candidates have been barred from participating in the elections in an attempt to limit the choice of the Iranian people for their government. These actions do not represent free and fair elections and are not consistent with international norms," State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters.

Previously when Washington has commented on elections, Iranians have perceived it as US meddling and it has hurt the reformists' popularity. Hard line leaders played on such sentiment on Friday, telling voters Washington had encouraged a boycott in an election that reformist President Mohammad Khatami has also called "unfair".

Iranians appeared poised to elect hardliners opposed to Khatami after a dispute over many banned reformist candidates sparked the worst political crisis in years.

Mr Ereli also cited the closing of two reformist publications and the office of the largest reformist party in the run-up to the elections as evidence the vote was unfair.

He rejected the idea that the US criticism would be counter-productive in Iran. "I don't think we are more critical of the elections than the Iranian people are," he said. -Reuters