IRAN Elections to the Islamic Consultative Assembly (original) (raw)

10th Majlis Election in Iran: Structural, Institutional, Legal, and Political Issues

Abstract The 10th Majlis election was held in the Islamic Republic of Iran on 26 February 2016. The election witnessed a record number of disqualified candidates by the Guardian Council. Notwithstanding this, the pro-government candidates were well-received by the voters. President Hassan Rouhani’s foreign policy and the nuclear deal that had concluded with the international community, held a special place in the political debates during the election. This paper first analyses the importance of the 10th Majlis election in Iran in the light of President Rouhani’s foreign policy. Secondly, it explores the election process. This paper argues that elections in Iran suffer from four types of issues. First characteristic is closely linked with the theocratic nature of the Iranian political system. Second one is connected with the Iranian electoral system. Third one arises from the inefficiency of electoral institutions. Finally, those issues caused by the discriminative approach of the Iranian ruling elites towards certain political parties and ethno religious groups. "İran’da Onuncu Meclis Seçimleri: Yapısal, Kurumsal, Yasal ve Siyasal Sorunlar" Özet İran İslam Cumhuriyeti, 26 Şubat 2016 tarihinde onuncu meclis seçimini gerçekleştirdi. Seçim, Anayasa Koruyucuları Konseyi tarafından rekor sayıda adayın elenmesine tanık oldu. Buna rağmen, hükümet yanlısı üyeler, seçmenler tarafından çok olumlu karşılandılar. Cumhurbaşkanı Hasan Ruhani’nin dış politika ve nükleer enerji konularında uluslararası toplumla anlaşmaya varması, seçim süreci boyunca yaşanan siyasal tartışmalarda önemli bir yer tutmuştur. Bu çalışma, ilk olarak Cumhurbaşkanı Ruhani’nin izlediği dış politika ışığında İran’daki onuncu meclis seçimlerinin önemini analiz etmektedir. İkinci olarak seçim sürecini ele almaktadır. Bu makale İran’daki seçimlerin dört farklı sorunla karşı karşıya kaldığını iddia etmektedir. Birincisi İran siyasal sisteminin teokratik doğasıyla yakından bağlantılıdır. İkinci sorun İran seçim sistemiyle ilgili olup üçüncüsü seçim kuruluşlarının yetersizliği sebebiyle ortaya çıkmıştır. Sonuncusu ise İran’ın yönetici seçkinlerinin belirli siyasal partilere ve etnik-dini gruplara yönelik dışlayıcı yaklaşımından kaynaklanmıştır.

Iran’s Presidential Election: Problematic but Important

The outcome of the upcoming Presidential election in Iran has been sealed by the Guardian Council’s decision to exclude candidates at will and to favor the Supreme Leader’s trustees. The current appointed body has prevented Rafsanjani and Mashaei, along with several other hundreds, from running for the seat, while the Green Movement has been prosecuted. But even though none of the remaining eight candidates can be labeled as pure reformers or as liberals, they do have different approaches on important matters that have significant impact on the country and the region, such as their stances on the nuclear program and on the economy.

Iran's Remarkable Election (1997)

In May 1997, the Islamic Republic of Iran presented the world the remarkable spectacle of an autocratic, repressive regime that bans political parties holding a free and fair presidential election. In a hard-fought and highly competitive contest, former minister of culture Mohammad Khatami gained an upset victory over Speaker of the Majlis (parliament) Ali Akbar Nateq-Nuri, winning almost 70 percent of the vote to become the Islamic Republic's fifth president. According to the government, turnout topped 80 percent, a figure not reached since the early years of the revolution. Even allowing for the possibility of some official inflation of turnout statistics, anecdotal evidence suggests that large numbers of people (especially women, young people, and members of the middle class) went to the polls this time after not having bothered to vote in several previous elections. Moreover, the ballots were properly counted, the results publicly announced, and the voters' mandate accepted by the regime. In evaluating the significance of this election, of course, certain unusual institutional features of the Islamic Republic must be kept in mind. First, although Iran's president runs the government and appoints cabinet ministers (subject to confirmation by the Majlis), he does not hold the country's highest office. Ultimate authority rests with the Supreme Leader or rahbar�also known as the faqih (Islamic jurist)�who is selected from among the country's leading clerics by the clerically dominated but popularly elected Assembly of Experts. The [End Page 80] Supreme Leader, not the president, appoints the chiefs of the military and security forces, the head of the judiciary and of the broadcasting services, and the clerical members of the Council of Guardians, a watchdog body that can strike down any legislation that it deems violative of Islam or the 1979 Constitution. The Supreme Leader is constitutionally empowered to set the broad policies of the Islamic Republic, and in practice he has acquired additional means of interfering in the running of the government. Second, the Islamic Republic requires that anyone wishing to run for the presidency must be approved by the Council of Guardians. In 1997, with two-term incumbent Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani barred by the Constitution from running again, the Council approved only four out of a large field of such applicants. While most of those rejected were not serious candidates, a number of representatives from legitimate, if officially unrecognized, political groups were barred from running. The election was basically a restricted competition among members of the ruling elite, and became a race between the two front-runners, Nateq-Nuri and Khatami. Yet this does not mean that no significant differences separated the two leading candidates. Although Khatami is also a member of the clerical elite, the ruling establishment clearly favored the more conservative Nateq-Nuri. The country's most powerful clerical organization, the influential Friday prayer leaders in almost all the major cities, the majority of members of parliament, the majority of members of the Council of Guardians, the minister of intelligence, and, most important, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei all explicitly or implicitly endorsed Nateq-Nuri. The overwhelming popular vote for Khatami in the face of these endorsements represented an incontrovertible "No" to the ruling clerical