WASHINGTON, Feb. 24 (UPI) -- President George W. Bush expressed disappointment Tuesday with Iran's parliamentary elections in which 2,400 candidates were banned.
The banning of the candidates by the country's hardline Islamist Guardian Council "deprived many Iranians of the opportunity to freely choose their representatives," Bush said.
Conservatives won the majority of seats in the 290-member Majlis (legislature), raising the power of the country's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and diminishing that of reformist President Mohammad Khatami.
Bush also criticized the closing of two reformist newspapers during the election run up.
The United States and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since 1979 when Islamist students took over the U.S. Embassy and took diplomats hostage.
A growing clamor for easing of social and political restrictions imposed by Islamist clerics have led to a number of bloody clashes in Iran in the past year.
