Parliamentary election in Iran (II)-Iran Today-01-27-2012

Iran is gearing up for parliamentary elections in five weeks. 290 seats are available and those deemed worthy to fill them will represent the people for four years.

More than 5000 people from 1000 election precincts have registered. At this stage anyone can get in on the game. Among the candidates are a football coach and married couples.

These candidates have to be thoroughly evaluated by 4 entities; the Executive Board, Supervisory board, Central Executive Board and the Guardian Council in that order.

When approved by one, a candidate moves on to the next and if rejected, one can complain to the next for the reevaluation of his file. The Executive Board has evaluated all 5000 candidates.

Seventeen percent of them were disqualified at this stage. Among those rejected are 35 former MPs who nominated themselves for reelection. And some of them were popular and influential figures during their term in office, like HamidReza Katoozian, Ali AbbasPour and Alireza Mahjoob.

This has raised eyebrows. Of the first time candidates Ali Motahari, the son of prominent revolutionary Ayatollah Morteza Motahari was also been rejected. The Executive Board accuses him of a having a lukewarm allegiance to Islam, the establishment and the leader. We know this because although the reasons why a candidate is rejected are communicated to them confidentially, they themselves often publish rebuttals.

Some say the vetting process is flawed, because the entities responsible for evaluating a candidate have government members on their boards. The interior ministry says the fact that last term 40 percent of the candidates were disqualified, and this year 17 percent, shows that's not true, but some say the fact that the number of reformists in this round are considerably less, nullifies that.

Needless to say those who were rejected by the Executive Body have taken their indignation to the Supervisory board, and some of them were allowed back into the race, including Ali Motahari.

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