TEHRAN -– “The reformists realize that they are not very popular so they have begun premature moves for the upcoming (Majlis) elections,” Islamic Coalition Party Deputy Chairman Asadollah Badamchian said here on Sunday.

The conservative politician claimed that the problem with reformists is that they seek power rather than caring for people’s needs.

“The reformists can speak about themselves and their coalition, but to speak for others is just a political game and at the end they will be the loser” he told the Mehr News Agency.

Meanwhile, a senior member of the Devotees Society of the Islamic Revolution, Mojtaba Shakeri, told MNA on Sunday that fundamentalists will not divulge their strategy for Majlis elections.

“The reformists have shielded themselves by putting three political figures of comparatively high popularity on the frontline,” Shakeri said in an indirect reference to former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, and former Majlis speaker Mahdi Karrubi.

However, he said, these three figures do not necessarily conform to the views of many of the reformists.

Some of the reformists were MPs in the sixth Majlis who are well known for their “inclination to rebellion”, he argued.

But Badamchian called the “axis of reformists” a psychological warfare, saying it is a lie because Rafsanjani stands above the factional rivalries.

The Guardian Council spokesman said on Sunday that late winter is the best time for holding parliamentary elections. However the Majlis, which is dominated by the conservatives, is pushing for simultaneous parliamentary and presidential elections in 2008, trying to extend the term of the sitting MPs and cutting the current presidential term.

Through a premature talk of elections the reformists are trying to “trouble the waters” and trap the fundamentalists, Shakeri commented. PA/MS END MNA