TEHRAN - Certain sections of Iran's armed forces have laid out plans to interfere in the June 17 presidential elections, the interior ministry warned Tuesday without elaborating on what the alleged plot involved.
"In some military institutions, they have been preparing very elaborate and organised activities for the presidential elections," Interior ministry spokesman Jahanbakhsh Khanjani was quoted as sayign by the official news agency IRNA.
"We sense, behind these preparations, a whiff of military intervention in the election," he said, before mysteriously speaking of "10 plus one" and "20 plus one" plans.
The spokesman did not elaborate, although he was not believed to have been raising the spectre of some sort of armed intervention.
The interior ministry, still controlled by the reformist government of outgoing President Mohammad Khatami, is responsible for organising elections.
So far there have been no signs of military interference in the poll, yet there has been concern over a possible militarisation of the regime -- given that four out of the eight contenders have been former senior commanders in the Revolutionary Guards.
On Monday the ministry ordered the country's military forces to keep out of the polls, in a demand aimed primarily at members of a hardline Islamist vigilante milita.
The directive reiterated the law that soldiers and policemen are forbidden to participate in the election campaigns and cannot represent candidates at the polls.
Last week President Mohammad Khatami also called on the police, the army, the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia to refrain from any type of moves that might be interpreted as interference in the election.
05/31/2005 13:45 GMT