Iran’s March 2 parliamentary elections will mark the first time the country has gone to the polls since the disputed 2009 presidential elections in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won his second term. There are 290 parliament seats up for grabs and the country’s Guardian Council announced last week that 3,444 candidates had been approved to run for them. Al Jazeera asked Reza Marashi, research director of the National Iranian American Council, and Mehrzad Boroujerdi, professor of political science at Syracuse University, to explain Iran’s complex political process.
Who decides if a person can be a parliamentary candidate?
Reza Marashi: The registration of candidates running for the parliament is handled by the Interior Ministry and vetted by the Guardian Council.
Mehrzad Boroujerdi: There are three levels at which a candidate’s credentials have to be approved. Upon the completion of the registration period, provincial governors, county governors and district governors form a committee to investigate the background of candidates.
They often send inquiries to the Ministry of Intelligence, the judiciary, the police and the National Organization for Civil Registration to inquire about the candidate’s past. They report the list of qualified candidates within a 10 day period to the Provincial Supervisory Councils, an arm of the Council of Guardians, and the Central Supervisory Body for the election, an arm of the Ministry of Interior. These local governors can inform the candidate in a written and private letter as to why he or she was disqualified. If the candidate asks for proof of the charges against him the responsible authorities are supposed to provide that evidence as well. However, this rarely happens in reality.
Full Article: What it takes to run for Iran’s parliament – Features – Al Jazeera English.
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