Iranian Assembly of Experts election, 2006

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Iranian Assembly of Experts election, 2006
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All 88 seats to the Assembly of Experts
 
Alliance Principlists Reformists
Seats won5929
Speaker before election

Ali Meshkini
Principlists

Elected Speaker

Ali Meshkini
Principlists

The Iranian Assembly of Experts election of 2006 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.

Assembly of Experts

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 designate and dismiss the Supreme Leader of Iran. However all directly-elected members after the vetting process by the Guardian Council still have to be approved by the Supreme Leader of Iran before gaining membership to the Assembly of Experts.

Supreme Leader of Iran Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The Supreme Leader of Iran, also referred to as Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution, but officially called the Supreme Leadership Authority, is the head of state as well as the ultimate political and religious authority of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The armed forces, judiciary, state television, and other key government organizations are subject to the Supreme Leader. The current longtime officeholder, Ali Khamenei, has been issuing decrees and making the final decisions on economy, environment, foreign policy, education, national planning, and everything else in Iran. Khamenei also makes the final decisions on the amount of transparency in elections, and has dismissed and reinstated presidential cabinet appointees. The Supreme Leader directly chooses the ministers of Defense, Intelligence and Foreign Affairs, as well as certain other ministers, such as the Science Minister. Iran's regional policy is directly controlled by the office of the Supreme Leader with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' task limited to protocol and ceremonial occasions. All of Iran's ambassadors to Arab countries, for example, are chosen by the Quds Corps, which directly report to the Supreme Leader.

Contents

The elections took place the same day as the City and Village Councils elections.

City and Village Councils of Iran

City and Village Councils are local councils which are elected by public vote in all cities and villages throughout Iran. Council members in each city or village are elected by direct public vote to a 4-year term.

Candidates

The credentials of being a Mujtahid were approved for all candidates by the Guardian Council using written and oral (interview) examinations. Some members of the Guardian Council also ran for the Assembly of Experts. Although there were a few female ayatollahs (Mujtahidehs) applying for candidacy, they could not pass the examination. The number of candidates which passed the examination was so low that the council had to lower the passing mark several times. There were initially 144 candidates for the 86 available seats. [1] [2] This was later increased, and according to Islamic Republic News Agency there were 181 qualified candidates. [3] [2] However, the number of candidates on the day of election was 165, and for the first time there were two non-cleric doctor of Islam candidate, although they were not elected. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

Guardian Council appointed and constitutionally-mandated 12-member council that wields considerable power and influence in Iran

The Guardian Council of the Constitution is an appointed and constitutionally mandated 12-member council that wields considerable power and influence in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Islamic Republic News Agency government news agency of Iran

The Islamic Republic News Agency, or IRNA, is the official news agency of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is government-funded and controlled under the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. The agency also publishes the newspaper Iran. As of 2010, the Managing Director of IRNA is Mohammad Khodaddi. IRNA has 60 offices in Iran and 30 more in various countries around the world.

Outcome

The Ministry of Interior reported an estimated 60% turnout of the 46.5 million eligible voters, [9] reporting "more than 28 million people" as the number of voters who had voted. [10] Different parties had several candidates in common, but Baztab News reported that the candidate list announced by the Combatant Clergy Association captured most of the seats (68 of 86 seats, while introducing 81 candidates). Reformists backed by Mahdi Karroubi and conservative associates of Mesbah Yazdi failed to live up to their expectations. [11] [4]

Baztab is an Iranian, Persian language, Tehran-based news website. The English service of this site has published since January 2007. Although Baztab is an anti-reformist website, it sometimes criticizes Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government's policies and mostly unveils corruption cases inside the government. Baztab is widely believed to have close ties with Mohsen Rezaee, conservative politician, current secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council and former Revolutionary Guards chief.

Combatant Clergy Association

The Combatant Clergy Association is a politically active group in Iran, but not a political party in the traditional sense.

The top 16 candidates in Tehran were announced as:

CandidateElectoral listsVotes
CCA/SSTQ SDIR ESUCPE R NTP MDP
Tehran Akbar Hashemi Bahramani (Rafsanjani)YesYesYesYesYesYes1,564,197
Mohammad Agha-Emami (Emami-Kashani)YesYesYesYes1,027,767
Ali-Akbar Feyz (Ali Meshkini)YesYesYesYesYesYes1,015,500
Mohammad Yazdi YesYesYesYes970,192
Ahmad Jannati YesYesYesYesYes929,403
Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi YesYesYesYes879,883
Hassan Rouhani YesYesYesYesYes844,190
Qorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi YesYesYesYesYes736,387
Mohsen Kazeroun (Kazerouni)YesYesYesYes716,828
Seyyed Mohsen AqaMir Mohammad-Ali (Kharrazi)YesYesYesYesYesYesYes688,212
Reza Ostadi-Moqaddam YesYesYesYesYesYes650,391
Abdolnabi Namazi YesYesYes602,096
Mohammad Baqer Baqeri (Baqeri Kani)YesYesYesYes598,352
Mohammad Mohammadi Davi-Saraei (Gilani)YesYesYesYesYes574,688
Mohsen Qomi YesYesYesYes543,951
Seyyed Mohammad Hassan Marashi (Shoushtari)518,129
Electoral lists:

ESU: Experts of Seminary and University

CPE: Coalition of Principalism and Effectiveness

Sources:

Votes (Assembly of Experts Official Website)

Votes (Iranian Students' News Agency

Electoral lists (Assembly of Experts Official Website)

Electoral lists (Fars News Agency)

Of particular note was the victory of the pragmatist list led by Ayatollah Rafsanjani, over hard-line candidates associated with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Rafsanjani had lost out to Ahmadinejad in the runoff of the 2005 election for President. Yet Ayatollah Rafsanjani won nearly twice as many votes as President Ahmadinejad's mentor, hard-liner Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi. Final results for the Assembly of Experts showed that more than 65 candidates close to Rafsanjani were elected. At 60 percent, voter turnout was much higher than in previous years.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an Iranian politician and statesman who served as the sixth President of Iran from 2005 to 2013. He was also the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country.

The Assembly was convened on 19 February 2007 and Ali Meshkini was re-elected as chairman. The changes in the presiding board from the 3rd assembly was the replacement of Mohammad Yazdi with Ebrahim Amini, who has retired, as the 2nd deputy chairman; and election of Hassan Rohani as a provisionist. [12]

After the disputed results of the June 2009 Iranian presidential election were certified by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Chairman Rafsanjani was reported to have called a meeting of the Assembly of Experts, as the Assembly has the constitutional power to hire and fire the Supreme Leader. [13] On 8 March 2011, Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani replaced Ayatollah Rafsanjani as chairman. [14] Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani died in October 2014. [15] On March 10, 2015 the Assembly voted in Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi to be the next Chairman. [16]

The term begun in 2007 shall allegedly last ten years (rather than the regular eight) due to the "election aggregation" plan of the government, put in place to allow the government to run elections simultaneously for the Assembly of Experts and the Parliament, thereby economizing election administration costs.

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References

  1. ↑ IRAN Press controls increase as election campaign gets underway - Asia News Archived 4 July 2007 at the Wayback Machine .
  2. 1 2 Aftab-e Iran
  3. ↑ Irna Archived 30 September 2007 at the Wayback Machine .
  4. 1 2
  5. ↑ Princeton Iran Data Portal
  6. ↑ Iran: Elections Seen As Test Of Ahmadinejad's Popularity - RADIO FREE EUROPE / RADIO LIBERTY
  7. ↑ "The Significance of Iran's December Elections - The Washington Institute for Near East Policy". Washingtoninstitute.org. Retrieved 2013-02-10.
  8. ↑ http://www.dur.ac.uk/resources/iranian.studies/Policy%20Brief%201.pdf%5Bpermanent+dead+link%5D
  9. ↑ "Early signs mixed in Iran vote". Reuters. 16 December 2006. Archived from the original on 18 January 2013. Retrieved 21 December 2006.
  10. ↑ IRNA (21 December 2006). رییس ستاد انتخابات: حضور باشکوه مردم در انتخابات مجلس خبرگان پشتیبانی از ولایت فقیه است (in Persian). Archived from the original on 26 January 2007. Retrieved 21 December 2006.
  11. ↑ "The winning arrangement in the Experts Election (آرایش پیروز در انتخابات خبرگان)" (in Persian). Archived from the original on 19 December 2006.
  12. ↑ گشایش چهارمین دوره مجلس خبرگان [The opening convention of the Fourth Assembly of Experts]. Rajanews (in Persian). 20 February 2007. Archived from the original on 10 March 2007. Retrieved 18 May 2016., شکست کامل سناریوی افراطیون [Complete failure of the extremists]. Aftab News (in Persian). 21 February 2007. Archived from the original on 23 February 2007. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
  13. ↑ Borger, Julian; Black, Ian (14 June 2009). "World leaders urged by Iran's opposition party to reject Ahmadinejad's alleged victory". The Guardian . Retrieved 17 June 2009.
  14. ↑ Dareini, Ali Akbar (8 March 2011). "Iranian ex-leader Rafsanjani loses powerful role". World—>Wires. The Washington Post. Tehran. The Associated Press. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
  15. ↑ Ionnou, Filipa (23 October 2014). "Head of Assembly That Will Pick Next Supreme Leader of Iran Dies". Slate. Archived from the original on 23 October 2014. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
  16. ↑ Erdbrink, Thomas (10 March 2015). "Conservative Cleric Chosen to Lead Iranian Council". The New York Times. Tehran. Retrieved 18 May 2016.
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