IRAN’S communist Tudeh Party has dismissed any possibility of progressive change coming out of yesterday’s parliamentary elections.

More than 6,000 candidates contested the 290 parliamentary seats as part of several slates or as independents.

But Tudeh Party international secretary Navid Shomali warned that the apparent pluralism was illusory, as a similar number of reformist candidates had already been purged from the election by the powerful Guardian Council of theologians and jurists.

“The prerequisite for candidacy was to express full loyalty to the current political regime,” said Mr Shomali.

“The people are only allowed to partake in an ‘election’ whose candidates have passed through the filters of the dark-minded Guardian Council.”

The real struggle was between President Hassan Rouhani and his ally, parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani, on the one hand and [Supreme Leader] Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on the other, Mr Shomali added.

“The fundamental rights of the people cannot be realised in the frameworks set by the despotic regime and the absolute rule of the supreme leader.”

The International Trade Union Confederation and the International Transport Federation condemned Iran this week for its latest crackdown on trade unionists.

The Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company vice-chairman Ebrahim Madadi were tried on January 22 for taking part in an illegal gathering, while 28 workers at the Khatoon Abad copper mine were arrested on February 8.

“The detention of thousands of trade unionists and political activists remains a reality of life in Iran under the theocratic regime,” said Committee for the Defence of the Iranian People’s Rights assistant general-secretary Jamshid Ahmadi.