The February parliamentary elections\ntook place in Iran at a time of heightened tensions at home. Facing US\nsanctions since November 2018, the country’s crude oil, petrochemicals and minerals\nexports have been severely hit. Iran was also barred from using the US\nfinancial system and trading in US dollars. The US sanctions campaign has had\nnoticeable effects on Iran resulting in a decline in GDP growth, economic\nstagnation, high rates of inflation and unemployment and a fall in the\ncurrency’s value. Iran’s domestic turmoil has also been exacerbated by the\ntragic downing of the Ukrainian passenger plane and the poor performance of\nsenior Iranian officials in charge of the economy. The Rouhani government was\nneither able to work around US sanctions to export its oil nor was it\nsuccessful in pressuring European countries to maintain trading with Iran, as\nits decision to reduce its nuclear obligations proved useless. These failures, in return, sparked public anger and protests\nin several Iranian cities. Protests, however, were ruthlessly suppressed in the\nmost brutal crackdown since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. As the previous\nIranian Parliament failed in reducing state violence against protesters and was\nunsuccessful in providing solutions for the problems faced by the people, the\nanticipated retaliation was the low turnout witnessed at the recent\nparliamentary elections.<\/p>\n\n\n
The Role of Iran’s Guardian Council in the Parliamentary Elections:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n The Guardian Council, a 12-member\nbody composed of six clerics and six jurists, vets and disqualifies electoral candidates. The council’s decision,\nwithout providing any justification, is final and cannot be appealed against.\nThe Iranian Constitution authorizes the Guardian Council to oversee elections\nonly to disqualify candidates who are against the Constitution or against the Iranian\nRevolution. Nevertheless, the Guardian Council has been using its power in\nrecent years to decide on candidates based on the criteria of Iran’s Supreme\nLeader, Ali Khamenei. Abiding by Khamenei’s orders, the Guardian Council has\ndisqualified many former parliamentarians, ministers and even presidents of the\nIslamic Republic from standing as candidates for the Iranian Parliament.\nParliamentary elections, therefore, are mere political plays directed by the\nGuardian Council upon the orders of Ali Khamenei. <\/p>\n\n\n Statistics of the Recent Elections:<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n A total of 16,145 candidates\nregistered for 290 seats in the 11th round of Iran’s parliamentary elections.\nDisqualifying as many as 56 percent, the Guardian Council only accepted 7,148\ncandidates. In the previous round, the council had disqualified 51 percent of\ncandidates. A member of the Central Council of Executives of the Construction\nParty criticized the policy of the Guardian Council saying, \u201cinvestigating the\ncandidates\u2019 appeals in a 20-day deadline is impossible. \u201d He added, \u201cIf 50 percent of\ncandidates out of a total of 15,000 have been disqualified and 6,000 of them\ndecide to file appeals about their disqualifications, given the 20-day deadline\nfor investigating those appeals and given the 18 working hours a day for the\nrespected members of the Guardian Council, there are only four minutes for\ninvestigating each case. Is this reasonable? They definitely cannot investigate\nthem properly, especially as some respected members of the Guardian Council are\nvery old, it is not possible for them to work 18 hours incessantly. They\npractically cannot investigate 6,000 cases.\u201d Such moves clearly aim to form a Parliament\nmore aligned with Iran’s political system and\nless subject to public criticism given the deteriorating economic conditions in\nIran, which could trigger more protests and lead to Iranians increasing their demands. <\/p>\n\n\n Rouhani’s Criticism of the Decisions Made by the Guardian Council:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n Ahead of Iran\u2019s parliamentary\nelections, Rouhani had criticized the Guardian Council. In reference to the\nnegative impact on Iranian political life since the Guardian Council was first\nestablished; he said that the first two parliamentary sessions that were held\nbefore the establishment of the Guardian Council were more effective and had\nparliamentarians that were competent enough to serve the people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n After the Guardian Council had announced the mass disqualifications, President Hassan Rouhani said that Iran\u2019s political currents are not fully represented by those who have been allowed to run in the 2020 parliamentary elections, in reference to the exclusion of \u201creformist\u201d candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Chairman of the Guardian Council,\nAhmad Jannati, stated that the elections will be competitive and that all\npolitical currents will be represented in the electoral contests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disqualified Parliamentarians:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n From the 248 members of Parliament who\ndecided to run for a seat in the new Parliament, the Guardian Council\ndisqualified 90 resulting in a number of questions being raised by the Iranian\npublic such as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n What kind of offenses did these\nmembers of Parliament commit during the past four years while serving as\nrepresentatives of the people that prevented them from running for the 2020\nelections?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As lawmakers who have been declared\nunworthy to run for the upcoming elections, would they still have the powers to\nmake laws for the state and monitor the performance of the government until the\nend of the parliamentary session? If yes, how would they be able to do so while\nconsidered as unworthy to run again for elections by Iran’s political system? <\/p>\n\n\n\n The disqualifications of\nparliamentarians led to a war of words between the Guardian Council and the\nParliament, as Iran’s Guardian Council Spokesman Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei said that\nmost of the current lawmakers were disqualified for \u201cfinancial problems.\u201d\nParliamentarians, however, defended themselves calling him a \u201cliar. \u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The US Sanctions Against the Guardian Council<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The wide disqualification of\npro-reform candidates attracted attention in the United States. The US special\nenvoy to Iran, Brian Hook, described the Iranian elections as a \u201cpolitical\nplay. \u201d On the eve of the election, the United States imposed sanctions on five\nsenior Iranian officials. The US Treasury blacklisted Ahmad Jannati, the\nSecretary of the Guardian Council, Abbasali Kadkhodaei, Spokesman for Iran’s\nGuardian Council and three additional members of the Guardian Council’s Elections Supervisory Committee: Mohammad\nHassan Sadiq Muqaddam, Mohammad Yazdi, \nand Siamak Rah-Peyk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Iran\u2019s Election Leaves Voters Out in the Cold, With a Record Low Turnout<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Prominent lawmakers in the previous\nlegislative term who had played the biggest role in exposing and condemning\ncorruption were disqualified from running. Those disqualified lawmakers\nincluded Ali Mothari, the son-in-law of Ali Larijani, Mohammadreza Tabish,\nHossein Naqavi Hosseini, Behrouz Nemati, Elias Hazrati, and Mahmoud Sadeghi who\nraised the issue of shady bank accounts belonging to the judicial authorities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Ali Larijani, who had been elected as Parliament speaker for three consecutive terms since 2008, did not stand for re-election in the 2020 elections, announcing his decision when the candidacy registration opened. He was joined in this decision to stand down by the head of the \u201creformist\u201d bloc in the Parliament, Mohammed Ali Reza Aref, with some suggesting that Larijani and Aref may have withdrawn in order to run in the country\u2019s 2021 presidential elections.<\/p>\n\n\n A List of Groups Associated with the \u201cConservatives\u201d\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n Of those who did participate, the members of the \u201cconservative\u201d political faction standing for Parliament in the 2020 elections were divided into the following seven main groups.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n 1-Coalition Council of Islamic Revolution Forces<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n Following a merger between the groups of the Revolutionary Forces and the Front of Islamic Revolution Stability, both considered as powerful \u201cconservative\u201d wings \u2013 a move followed by marathon negotiations between the members of the two groups \u2013, the newly-merged entity selected the former mayor of Tehran Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, as its head. Ghalibaf is also seeking to be appointed as the next parliamentary speaker after failing to win the presidential election previously.<\/p>\n\n\n 2- Iran Serbaland<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n A \u201cconservative\u201d electoral group led by the former mayor of Tehran Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. The list stated that its foremost aim would be to salvage the Iranian economy. <\/p>\n\n\n 3-Front of Islamic Revolution Stability<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n The Front was established as an electoral list in the 2012 Iranian elections. It is a radical \u201cconservative\u201d movement headed by Morteza Agha Tehrani, which captured 30 seats in the 11th parliamentary elections.\u00a0 <\/p>\n\n\n 4-The Coalition of Revolutionary Youth<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n The Coalition of Revolutionary Youth is made up of 30 candidates\nwho ran during the recent parliamentary elections. The list is headed by Peyman\nNoshadi. It should be noted that the head of the Coalition of Revolutionary\nYouth said previously that the members of this group, who are young\nrevolutionaries unaffiliated with any political movement, had been picked from\namong 110 applicants. <\/p>\n\n\n 5- Economy and People’s Livelihoods <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n This group is made up of 30 members,\nincluding 12 economists, nine specialists in production and marketing and nine\nother prominent cultural and social figures. It is headed by Gholamreza Mesbahi\nMoghadam. <\/p>\n\n\n\n 6-<\/strong> People\u2019s Coalition<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n This group includes senior officials\nwho were in the former government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It is led by Sadiq\nKhalilian. <\/p>\n\n\n 7-Group of Meddahs (Mansour Arzi\u2019s group)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n A \u201cconservative\u201d group headed by Mahmoud Nabavian. <\/p>\n\n\n A List of Groups Associated with the \u201cReformists\u201d<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n Unlike the \u201cconservatives\u201d who put forward seven groups to run in the elections, the \u201creformist\u201d movement put forward only two groups to contest the elections, despite the decision of the Reformists’ Supreme Council for Policymaking not to participate in the elections using electoral lists in order to allow parties working under the umbrella of the \u201creformist\u201d movement to participate bearing their original name. The two \u201creformist\u201d groups are: <\/p>\n\n\n 1. Executives of Construction Party <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n This group is informally known as the Supporters of Hashemi and\nconsists of 30 candidates. <\/p>\n\n\n 2.Union of Islamic Iran People\u2019s Party<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n This list is made up of 30 candidates representing the most prominent \u201creformist\u201d parties. The parties are the Islamic Labor Party, the Democracy Party led by the \u201creformist\u201d figure Mostafa Kavakebian, the Workers House Party, the Islamic Culture Assembly, the Islamic Iran Solidarity Party, and others. <\/p>\n\n\n 3.The Independents<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n The main electoral\nlist of this group was the United Independent Front,\nwhich includes 30 candidates and used as its motto \u2018No Lies.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n This is in addition to the Union of Independent Candidates which included several former government officials, the best known of whom is Elham Aminzadeh, formerly the vice president for legal affairs, and Ramin Mehman-Parast, an Iranian diplomat who had occupied several posts in the foreign ministry including serving as the former spokesman of the ministry and as Iran\u2019s ambassador to Bolivia and Lithuania. <\/p>\n\n\n The Electoral Programs and Slogans<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n Iranians want the new Parliament to address the issues that mainly concern them, such as living standards, unemployment, corruption and deteriorating economic and environmental conditions. Such issues, due to their crucial importance, have become a top priority for lawmakers and the primary point on which most of the candidates\u2019 electoral programs focused on during the 11th<\/sup> parliamentary elections. Many of the electoral slogans used, whether by the \u201creformists\u201d or \u201cconservatives\u201d, touched on several social issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the provincial regions, the slogans of candidates focused on\nthe problems from which their regions suffer. The slogans of candidates in\nEsfahan focused on solving problems related to water\nand natural resource distribution inefficiency\nas well as on problems related to industry,\ntransport, and culture. The issue of air\npollution was also raised by candidates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Voters criticized this election season, with many expressing disgruntlement at the uninspiring electoral programs put forward by candidates running\nfor Parliament. Many voters said that the slogans used by candidates were nothing but electoral propaganda, with no\nsign of any action on the ground. Voters also indicated that the electoral\nprograms introduced by candidates lacked\ndiversity and were ineffective, adding that there was no difference between the\nslogans used by candidates in the 2020 parliamentary elections and those used\nin any previous elections, with the slogans of the current parliamentary\nmembers effectively the same as those in the 10th<\/sup> parliamentary\nelections, which also focused on the economy and security but did nothing for\neither. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The \u201cconservatives\u201d, who captured most of the seats in the current Parliament, used slogans related to welfare, security, and progress, while the \u201creformists\u201d raised slogans focusing on hope and economic stability.<\/p>\n\n\n Turnout<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n Before the elections, the electoral turnout was expected to be low\ndue to the above-mentioned reasons, primarily the generally unhappy political\nand social climate surrounding the elections. The increasing number of coronavirus\ninfections also added to those reasons. The Iranian government, however,\nattempted to attribute the low voter turnout in the elections to the coronavirus\nalone, ignoring the more crucial political and socio-economic reasons which led to a record low turnout in the\nelections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Officials in the Ministry of Interior estimated the turnout at the\nbeginning of the polls to stand at 11 million out of the nearly 58 million\ncitizens eligible to vote. With many polling stations witnessing an extremely\nlow turnout of voters, the Iranian election commission was prompted to extend\nthe period for voting which was scheduled to end at 6:00 p.m. up to 11 p.m. in\norder to allow the largest possible number of voters to participate. The\nstate-run Fars news agency put the turnout in the elections at 42 percent out\nof the total eligible voters, the lowest election turnout since the Islamic\nrevolution in 1979. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Iran\u2019s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, headed to the polls\nto cast his vote in order to encourage people to head to the polls, cloaking the\nparliamentary elections in a religious guise and deeming voting to be a\nreligious duty. Khamenei uses this sort of language ahead of every election to\nplay on voters\u2019 sense of piety or patriotism and to try to guilt-trip them into\nturning out for the elections en masse. As can be seen, this effort was\nunsuccessful. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition to his indisputable wish to see his supporters in the \u201cconservative\u201d movement winning the elections and ensuring a new Parliament which is harmonious with all his decisions and orientations in the coming phase, Khamenei sought, via this election, to emphasize his popularity and legitimacy especially after the recent protests, witnessed in most Iranian cities, saw chants and slogans against the supreme leader, with protesters calling on him to step down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n However, despite his efforts as noted above, the turnout was\nexceptionally low with even the government acknowledging that it did not exceed\n42 percent; many observers argue,\nhowever, that the turnout was far lower than this woeful figure, especially if\ncompared to the 2016 elections when the turnout reached 62 percent or the 2012\nelections where 66 percent of eligible voters participated in the elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the statistics from the Iranian Ministry of Interior,\nTehran saw the lowest turnout for the elections, with only 26.2 percent of\nvoters bothering to turn out to vote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Outcomes of the Elections\n<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Once the preliminary election results emerged, it was clear that the \u201cconservatives\u201d were far in the lead, capturing the majority of seats. This was, of course, a predictable outcome after the Guardian Council disqualified hundreds of \u201creformists\u201d and prominent \u201cmoderates\u201d from running in the elections. The final results confirmed that the \u201cconservatives\u201d captured 75 percent of the parliamentary seats across Iranian cities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking after he announced the names of the winning candidates, Iranian Minister of Interior Abdel-Reza Rahmani insisted, against all the evidence, that the turnout in the elections exceeded 42 percent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n According to the tallies released by the Ministry of Interior, the voters who cast their votes reached 24.5 million, with several ministers, officials, and provincial governors under the former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad winning seats. Those officials include the former Head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Fereydoon Abbasi, the Minister of Economic Affairs and Finance during the second presidential term of President Ahmadinejad Shamseddin Hosseini, as well as the former Minister of Education Hamid-Reza Hajibabaei, and the former Minister of Welfare and Social Security Abdolreza Mesri. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The results also showed that the \u201cconservatives\u201d took the lead in the capital Tehran, taking as many as 30 seats, with the main winner being the former mayor of Tehran Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a well-known \u201cconservative\u201d politician. Ghalibaf is one of the members of the Expediency Discernment Council and a former mayor of Tehran who seeks to succeed Ali Larijani as parliamentary speaker. Another \u201cconservative\u201d winner in the elections was the Minister of Culture in the government of the late Hashemi Rafsanjani; Mostafa Mir Salim who is one of the most prominent \u201cconservative\u201d leaders in the Islamic Coalition Party. Out of the final results for 241 seats, the \u201cconservatives\u201d won 191 seats, the \u201creformists\u201d 16 seats, and the independents 34 seats. There are 49 seats for which results have not yet been decided, with the vote on these seats to be held in the second round of the elections <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" During a tumultuous period, Iran held its 11th parliamentary elections on Friday, February 21, 2020. A total of 7,148 candidates ran for a seat in Iran\u2019s 290-seat Parliament. On election day, 55,000 polling stations were made available in 208 constituencies. Concurrently, the midterm elections for the Assembly of Experts \u2013 a deliberative 88-member clerical body empowered to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":7690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7687"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7687\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9245,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7687\/revisions\/9245"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/rasanah-iiis.org\/english\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2020\/03\/Voter-Turnout-in-Irans-Parliamentary-Elections.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n