Iranian hardliners denounced on Tuesday a call by reformists for a referendum to resolve the deepening political crisis in the Islamic republic, branding it a Western plot to cause more "havoc."
The Association of Combatant Clerics, a reformist group led by former president Mohammad Khatami, on Monday urged a referendum to try to end the turmoil gripping Iran since the June 12 disputed presidential election.
"They have suggested yet another Western plot to raise havoc by proposing a referendum," said Hossein Shariatmadari, managing director of the hardline newspaper Kayhan who is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
"The main idea of this plan is to trigger tension. Their proposal is illegal amd impractical," Shariatmadari wrote.
He also said that if the referendum did take place, the result would be "more crushing" for the reformists than the presidential poll which saw hardline incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad re-elected by a landslide.
Khatami's group had voiced concern that "public confidence in the system has been damaged" by the election and its aftermath, which exposed deep divisions among Iran's elite in the worst crisis since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in the immediate aftermath of the vote and in the ensuing violence at least 20 people were killed and hundreds of protesters and reformists arrested by the regime.
Khatami himself is a strong supporter of Iran's main opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi who lost to Ahmadinejad in a vote he charged was marred by widespread fraud.
The conservative Khabar newspaper also rejected the idea of a referendum.
"Such controversial proposals, despite their appeal to protestors... challenge the basis of the system," the newspaper said in an editorial.
"A referendum would create challenges which our country cannot harbour and it would incite unrest instead of building confidence."
Khamenei had warned on Monday against measures that could destabilise the 30-year-old Islamic republic, which has a parliamentary system but overall clerical rule.
"Anyone, no matter their rank or title, will be detested by the people if they lead our society towards insecurity," the nation's most powerful man said in a speech carried on state television.
"Our leaders must be viligant. Any word or action which helps (the enemies) will be contrary to the interests of our people."
Khamenei, who has been in power for 20 years, also again accused foreign countries of interference in the violent aftermath of the election and seeking to destabilised Iran.
But in a sign of the cracks emerging at the very heart of the regime, former president and powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said on Friday the regime had lost the people's trust and that Iran was in "crisis."
"These are bitter times. I don't think anybody from any faction wanted it to end like this. We have all lost. We need unity more than ever," said Rafsanjani, who lost to Ahmadinejad in the 2005 election but heads two of the country's top political bodies.
Mousavi too maintained his defiance of the regime, calling on Monday and called for the release of "political prisoners" during a meeting with their families, his website Ghalamnews reported.
He said that even the arrest of tens of thousands of demonstrators "defending their rights" would fail to halt the wave of public protests.
