Rasa Ghazizadeh

Following the patchy news about the review of the candidates for the March 14 Majlis ‎‎(parliamentary) elections by the Guardians Council (the highest body that vets the ‎candidates for the elections), it is now clear that reformers have no prominent candidates ‎permitted to participate in the forthcoming Majlis elections. The elections process in Iran ‎involves the initial vetting of candidates to the parliamentary elections which takes place ‎by the Executive Elections Committees in the provinces. Following that, a higher body ‎the Guardians Council conducts its own vetting through its Elections Supervisory ‎Committees. ‎

In this regard, former vice-president during Mohammad Khatami’s presidency ‎Mohammad Ali Abtahi posted statistics regarding this disqualification. Following the ‎massive disqualification of reformist candidates by the Executive Elections Committees ‎of Iran’s Ministry of the Interior, the next higher body, the Election Supervisory ‎Committees belonging to the Guardians Council (which is tasked with reexamining the ‎qualifications of the candidates), rejected another 180 reformist candidates! According to ‎Abtahi, “Only 31 seats from a total of 290 in the Majlis are left for reformists to compete ‎for. “This means that from amongst the 909 known reformist candidates who announced ‎their candidacy to run for the Majlis, only 138 are allowed to run for the 31 available ‎seats,” according to Abtahi. ‎

With this development, the Supervisory Committees have completed a mission that began ‎with the Executive Committees, i.e. the elimination of all reformist candidates for the ‎eight Majlis elections to be held on March 14, 2008.‎

Initially there were some reports that the Supervisory Committees had approved the ‎qualifications of some of the reformist, thus paving the way for their candidacy. Among ‎them was Morteza Haji, a cabinet minister during Mohammad Khatami’s administration. ‎But he later denied such reports. Assadollah Kianersi, a member of the Etemad Melli ‎party also among the approved candidates. Montakhabnia, who was the leading candidate ‎son the list presented by Karubi was also approved, albeit after much behind the scenes ‎maneuverings. On the other hand, the candidacy of Abolfazl Shakuri, an MP in the sixth ‎Majlis and a close associate of the Karubi’s Etemad Melli party too was not approved. ‎Reports had circulated earlier that the Guardians Council had announced its criteria for ‎approving candidates, among which was the writing of a letter of repentance to the leader ‎of the Islamic regime by any one who had participated in a protest sit-in for the ‎disqualifications of the candidates to the seventh Majlis which would also denounce the ‎others who had participated in the sit-in. And despite his earlier public announcement that ‎he had not participated in the sit-in against the disqualifications and was “against the sit-‎in by other MPs”, Shakuri was still disqualified for running for the elections.‎

It is with these developments in mind that Abtahi believes there is no hope for the ‎presence of reformists in the upcoming elections. “Now that only 31 seats are available ‎for reformists to compete against, there are actually no candidates who have been ‎approved to participate in the elections,” Abtahi wrote on his web blog. I the provinces, ‎some groups that have pooled in candidates to form coalitions no longer have a reason to ‎continue their work as their candidates have been disqualified. Even among the few ‎prominent individuals who have been allowed to participate as candidates, the candidates ‎themselves question the rationale for staying in the game because they believe that ‎without the coalition groups, there will be nobody to campaign and work for them to get ‎the votes.‎