Tehran, Feb. 1 (Reuters): More than a third of Iran’s parliament resigned today, escalating a bitter political row on the 25th anniversary of the return from exile of the founding father of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

A quarter of a century after Khomeini established clerical rule, Iran’s political system has been plunged into its worst crisis for years by a hardline body’s decision to bar hundreds of reformist candidates from parliamentary elections this month.

Lawmakers formed an orderly queue to submit their typed resignation letters to parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karroubi. A total of 123 deputies had resigned by today evening, they said.

In a stormy parliament session, angry deputies denounced the Guardian Council — an unelected oversight body comprised of 12 clerics and Islamic jurists — for finding more than 2,000 would-be lawmakers unfit to stand in the February 20 ballot. “They want to cover the ugly body of dictatorship with the beautiful dress of democracy,” said deputy Mohsen Mirdamadi.

“We had no choice but to resign,” he said in an unusually blunt address, which was also broadcast live on state radio.

Reformists won about 190 of parliament’s 290 seats in 2000 elections when candidate vetting was far lower. More than 80 current reformist deputies are among those barred this time.

President Mohammad Khatami’s reformist government, which has been engaged in a bitter power struggle with hardliners since he was elected in 1997, has said it may refuse to hold the vote. Reformist parties say they will boycott the election.

Hardliners have used their veto powers to block most reform efforts for the past seven years. Khatami’s allies accuse them of making a blatant grab for full political control.

“One faction lacks people’s support. They want to gain it by force through the Guardian Council,” Karroubi said.

But the council was unrepentant. “Today’s resignations and the comments of disqualified deputies show the Guardian Council has done its duty accurately,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Guardian Council official Ahmad Azimizadeh as saying.

In an apparent reference to his hardline opponents, Khatami, quoted by IRNA, said today: “Those who are tuned to the will of the nation will survive and those who stand against the people...are doomed to extinction.”

Karroubi appealed to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who succeeded Khomeini in 1989, to intervene in the dispute.

Analysts say Khamenei, who has the last word on all state matters, is the best hope for a resolution of the crisis and may choose to order many of the candidate bans overturned to avert a legitimacy crisis and heightened international criticism.