IRAN was plunged into political turmoil yesterday when it emerged that unelected hardliners had disqualified hundreds of reformist candidates from standing in parliamentary elections next month.

President Khatami promised a legal challenge of the decision and gave warning of a “harsh reaction” within the country if the ruling was upheld. “I’m against such disqualifications. There are legal ways to fight,” he said after an emergency Cabinet meeting.

Scores of reformist politicians walked out of parliament, which they dominate at present, in protest at what one called a “coup d’état”.

Later about 60 MPs began a sit-in at the parliament. Muhammad Ali Abtahi, the Vice-President, arrived to support the protest. Several ministers were said to be ready to resign if the disqualifications were not reversed.

In addition, all of Iran’s 27 provincial governors threatened to resign the decision was not reversed with a week.

President Khatami will be under pressure to resign if appeals against the decision by the Guardian Council, a conservative-controlled institution that vets candidates, fail. He has long been criticised by Iranians for not being more robust in the face of unelected hardliners, who have used their control of power centres to block liberalisation.

If conservatives retake control of parliament, Mr Khatami will be a lame-duck President in the final year of his second term. Among those disqualified by the council, a 12-member body empowered to ensure that parliament’s actions comply with Islamic principles, was Mohammad Reza Khatami, the President’s brother, who heads the largest reform party.

“This is the biggest rejection of candidates in Iranian parliamentary history. If this decision is upheld, it will show that religious democracy is nothing but a slogan,” he said.

The parliament building, where reformist MPs were gathering for a sit-in, would become a “centre of resistance against this illegal action”, he added. He expected that many voters would boycott the forthcoming election unless the disqualifications were reversed.

The old guard had been expected to use its control of the Guardian Council to block reformers from standing next month, but the scale of the disqualifications caused dismay.More than half of the 1,700 candidates registered for the February 20 vote were said to have been disqualified by the Guardian Council, whose powers the President has tried to curb. Among them were about 80 incumbent reformist MPs.

One, Mohsen Mirdamadi, said: “I consider this rejection of candidates to be an illegal coup d’état and an act of regime change by non-military means.”

He said that the bulk of the disqualified MPs had been found by the Guardian Council to have been in violation of an article of electoral law stipulating that candidates for public office must show their commitment to Islam and respect the revolutionary principle that gives Ayatollah Ali Khamenei his position of supreme leader.

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