By Stefan Smith
Tehran - His allies have been harassed or thrown in jail. His calls for freedom of speech have been countered by tough crackdowns on pro-democracy protestors and the press. And powerful conservatives have largely consigned his ambitious reform programme to the rubbish bin.
But President Mohammad Khatami, the mild-mannered and moderate face of Islamic Iran, has been presented with what analysts describe as one last chance to cast off his image as a lame-duck leader.
The president, a mid-ranking cleric who openly admitted preferring reading books to dealing with Iran's bitter political in-fighting, is facing what appears to be a determined effort by conservatives to pull the government from under his feet.
On Sunday it emerged that the Guardians Council, a 12-member political oversight body charged with vetting all legislation and screening candidates for public office, had disqualified thousands of candidates from standing in the February 20 parliament elections.
Most, if not all of those blacklisted were reformists loyal to the president. Their control over the parliament, or Majlis, is crucial for the future of reforms.
"People are very disappointed, but that is not to say that Khatami has lost all influence. He can still have an influence," said Hamid Reza Jalaipour, a journalist and academic.
"But if he does nothing and does not secure a revision of the candidacies, he is finished."
But the prospect of Khatami finally asserting himself and saving his image, said journalist and analyst Saeed Leylaz, appear to be bleak.
"If Khatami can do something, his image will be improved," he told reporters.
"But as he sees no future political role for himself in the future, he is very guarded and the reform movement will have to continue without him behind it," Leylaz said. "And we shouldn't expect him to resign, because that is not in his personality."
As president, Khatami is technically Iran's number-two, second only to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei - a bizarre position caught between what is both a thriving democracy and a theocracy.
In reality, his powers have been eaten away by entrenched hardliners who wield their power through the courts, political oversight bodies, state media and the security forces - right-wing bastions all opposed to what they see as the reformists' chipping away at Islamic values.
But the president is now under massive pressure from his allies to assert his status and prove that his promise that "Islamic democracy" can work is more than just a slogan he used so adeptly to win the support of students, the massive youth population and women when he swept to office in 1997 and 2001.
"The president is responsible for the respect of the constitution, and this will show how serious he is," was the blunt reminder he received from his younger brother Mohammad Reza Khatami, the head of Iran's largest reform party and one of the disqualified candidates.
Leylaz said reformist control over parliament was crucial, as in effect the Majlis has been the only safe platform to express criticism of the way the country is run.
"Contrary to what many say the parliament has done a lot in recent years by being a platform for expression," he said. "If the parliament is not in the hands of reformists, we will have political stagnation."
One thing for sure is that Khatami's days of carefully balancing efforts not to rock the system whilst remaining popular among those seeking its radical reform are well and truly numbered.
"This is an illegal coup d'etat," wrote the reformist Yas-e No newspaper in an editorial on the candidate disqualifications. "Even if this attempt succeeds, those who will be in power will have no legitimacy."
And if the conservatives win the current stand-off and then the elections, analysts say, that crisis of legitimacy would apply to the president himself until his term expires in June 2005.