Power to the supreme leader
The development reported by Michael Slackman and Nazila Fathi in The New York Times appear to put the issue of who is allowed to run for the Iranian parliament directly in the hands of Ali Khamenei. His decisions could be very important for politics in Iran.Most Reformists Appear Purged From Iran Ballot
"When voters go to the polls on March 14 to select members of Parliament, they may be able to choose only between conservative candidates and other conservative candidates, leaders of Iran’s main reform party said Wednesday.
"With more than 7,200 candidates registered to run for 290 seats in Parliament, officials with the party, the Islamic Participation Front, said it appeared that 70 percent of reformist candidates had been disqualified...
"The out-of-power reformists had hoped that the coming election would be a referendum on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s management of the state...
"But the president and his allies control the system of vetting candidates for access to the ballot. The first step is for local boards in each province, known as the Executive Councils, to approve a candidate for access to the ballot. The boards are appointed by regional governors who have been appointed by the president.
"The next step is for the Guardian Council, a hard-line body of clerics close to the supreme leader, to approve or disqualify candidates. In past elections, the Guardian Council was where reform-minded candidates found themselves disqualified.
"This time, however, candidates and party officials said that the mass disqualifications began at the regional boards...
"[D]isqualified candidates can now appeal to regional supervisory boards and then to the Guardian Council. In past years, to ease the tensions caused by disqualification, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, intervened, encouraging the reversal of some disqualifications..."
Labels: elections, Iran, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:56 AM
1 Comments:
Not just some candidates. A very special one.
Iran Vetoes Candidates
"Iranian authorities have disqualified a grandson of the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini from running for Parliament, the press reported Wednesday.
The grandson, Ali Eshraghi, was one of more than 2,000 mainly reformist candidates vetoed by an Interior Ministry committee as having failed to adhere to the Constitution’s rules for candidates in the first phase of vetting.
He told the newspaper Kargozaran that the move did not benefit 'the expansion of democracy.'"
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