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TEHRAN, Iran — When voters go to the polls March 14 to select members of parliament, they may only be able to choose between conservative candidates and other conservative candidates, leaders of Iran’s main reform party said Wednesday.

With more than 7,200 candidates registered to run for 290 seats in parliament, officials with the main reform party, the Islamic Participation Front, said that it appeared that 70 percent of reformist candidates had been disqualified from the ballot.

The decision is not final and will not be made until early March, but the early indications are that the religiously conservative forces in control of every branch of government will attempt to block a comeback by the reformists close to former President Mohammad Khatami.

“Such large number of disqualifications is unprecedented,” said a statement by the reformist party carried by the Emruz website.

There had been hope among the out-of-power reformists that the upcoming election would be a referendum on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s management of the state. With inflation and unemployment high, and now a serious shortage of heating gas during a record cold winter, the hope was that the reformists and their allies could gain a second chance at power in Iran. They had at once controlled the parliament and the presidency.

But the system of vetting candidates for access to the ballot is controlled by the president and his allies. The first step is for local boards in each province to approve a candidate for access to the ballot. The boards are appointed by regional governors who have been appointed by the president. The next step is for the Guardian Council, a hard-line body of clerics close to the Supreme Leader, to approve or disqualify. In past elections, it was at the Guardian Council where reform-minded candidates found themselves disqualified.

This time, however, candidates and party officials said that the mass disqualifications began at the regional boards.

“We have learned that the majority of the disqualifications were done by the Executive Councils, not the Guardian Council,” said Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a member of the Party. “The Executive Councils are dominated by much more radical members than the Guardian Council,” he added.

Mr. Abtahi said that most of their better-known candidates, who could attract votes, were disqualified.

Two members of parliament were disqualified as well, including one of President Ahmadinejad’s most outspoken critics, Akbar Alami, who lost most of his right hand in the war with Iraq and has served already two terms in parliament.

“At age 52, I learned that according to the Executive Board I had allegations of non-commitment to Islam, lack of belief in the system of the Islamic Republic and lack of following the constitution of the Islamic Republic,” Mr. Alami said

Mr. Alami and other disqualified candidates can now appeal to regional supervisory boards and then to the Guardian Council. In past years, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei intervened to ease tension caused by disqualifications by encouraging the reversal of some disqualification. The key to the value of this next election, analyst said, will be whether the system shuts out those in the opposing camp, or lets them have access to the ballot.

A member of a conservative party, the Independent Fundamentalists, Saeed Abutaleb, said today all their candidates have been approved, the ISNA news agency reported. The party’s members have also been critical of the president’s economic performance.

The Interior Ministry said it had screened more than 7,000 candidates but it was not clear how many were finally approved to run. Rejected candidates can appeal to surveillance commissions until Jan. 26 or they can appeal directly to the Guardian Council.

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