The Guardian Council is an appointed and constitutionally mandated 12-member council that wields considerable power and influence in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The Assembly of Experts, also translated as the Assembly of Experts of the Leadership or as the Council of Experts, is the deliberative body empowered to appoint the Supreme Leader of Iran. All directly elected members must first be vetted by the Guardian Council.
Mohammad Yazdi was an Iranian conservative and principlist cleric who served as the head of Judiciary System of Iran between 1989 and 1999. In 2015, he was elected to lead Iran's Assembly of Experts, defeating Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president, by a vote count of 47 to 24.
The Combatant Clergy Association is a politically active group in Iran, but not a political party in the traditional sense.
Ali Fallahian is an Iranian politician and cleric. He served as intelligence minister from 1989 to 1997 under the presidency of Ali Akbar Rafsanjani.
The fourth Iranian Assembly of Experts election was held on 15 December 2006. The Assembly of Experts is a Council of 86 mujtahids that elect the Supreme Leader, and oversee his actions. The members of the Assembly are elected every eight years directly by the people of Iran.
Moderation and Development Party is a political party in Iran. It is a pragmatic-centrist political party which held its first congress in 2002.
The parliamentary election for the 9th Islamic Consultative Assembly, or Majlis, were held in Iran on Friday, 2 March 2012 with a second round on 4 May 2012 in those 65 districts where no candidate received 25% or more of the votes cast. More than 5,000 candidates registered but more than a third were disqualified by the Guardian Council leaving about 3,400 candidates to run for the 290 seat representing the 31 provinces.
Ayatollah Hashem Hashemzadeh Herisi is an Iranian Shiite cleric and politician. He is a former member of the 3rd and 4th and 5th Assembly of Experts from the East Azerbaijan electorate, from the midterm election in 2008 to 2024. He was also an MP from electoral district Tabriz, Osku and Azarshahr for the 3rd and 5th terms.
Ayatollah Mohammad Feyz Sarabi was an Iranian Shiite cleric and politician. He was a member of the 4th and 5thAssembly of Experts from the East Azerbaijan electorate. Feyzi won his membership with 283,856 votes.
Hujjat al-IslamAsghar Dirbaz is an Iranian Shiite cleric, author and politician. He is a member of 4th, 5th and 6th Assembly of Experts from the West Azerbaijan electorate. Dirbaz won his membership with 1,208,599 votes in the midterm election on 22 March 2013. He was reelected in the 2016 and 2024 elections.
Parliamentary elections were held in Iran on 26 February 2016 to elect members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly for all seats in the 10th parliament in the Islamic Republic era and the 34th since the Persian Constitutional Revolution. A second round was held on 29 April 2016 for some constituencies where candidates failed to obtain the required minimum 25 percent of votes cast. The elected MPs served from 28 May 2016 to 27 May 2020.
The fifth Iranian Assembly of Experts election were held in Iran on 26 February 2016 to elect the members of the Assembly of Experts. All 88 members of the Assembly of Experts, who are known as mujtahids, are directly elected. The elections had been planned for 2014, but were delayed in order for the election to be held alongside the Islamic Consultative Assembly elections.
The Council for Coordinating the Reforms Front or the Reformist Front Coordination Council is the umbrella organization, coalition and council of main political groups within the Iranian reform movement. Since 2015, it is overseen by the Reformists' Supreme Council for Policy-making.
People's Experts is an electoral list published by former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to compete against the conservative Society of Seminary Teachers of Qom in the 2016 Iranian Assembly of Experts election.
Pervasive Coalition of Reformists: The Second Step, named The List of Hope by Mohammad Khatami, was the sole coalition and electoral list affiliated with the Iranian reform movement for the 2016 legislative election. The group also endorsed candidates for the 2016 Assembly of Experts election. Reformists backed a list of 236 candidates for the Parliament and 77 for the Assembly of Experts, even though many of them are not reformists but moderate-leaning figures.
Elaheh Rastgou is an Iranian conservative-minded reformist politician who was formerly a member of City Council of Tehran and a Member of Parliament.
The second Iranian Assembly of Experts election was held on October 8, 1990, to elect all 83 members in 24 constituencies. The election was the first election of the assembly since Ayatollah Khomeini's death and the election of Ali Khamenei as the new Supreme Leader. This election had the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran with 37.09% of the eligible voters participating.
The first Iranian Assembly of Experts election was held on December 10 1982, to elect all 82 members in 24 constituencies. 18,013,061 citizens voted in the elections, marking a 77.38% turnout. Out of 168 individuals registered to run, 146 (86.90%) were qualified allowed to do so.
Presidential elections were held in Iran on 18 June 2021, the thirteenth since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. Ebrahim Raisi, the then Chief Justice of Iran, was declared the winner in a highly controversial election. The election began with the mass disqualification of popular candidates by the Guardian Council, and broke records of the lowest turnout in Iranian electoral history, as well as had the highest share of protest blank, invalid and lost votes despite a declaration by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, considering protest voting religiously forbidden (haraam) as it would "weaken the regime." Reporters Without Borders reported 42 cases of journalists being summoned or threatened for writing about candidates, and the chief of the police threatened people who discouraged others to vote.
