Larijani Re-Elected Speaker of Majlis

Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani fought off a serious challenge from Qolam Ali Hadad Adel to be reelected as the speaker in the newly seated Ninth Majlis. Larijani’s brother is the head of another branch of the government, the Judiciary, and another brother is a key ideologue and theoretician of the Islamic Republic. Larijani was the speaker of the Eighth Majlis, often leading MPs in fierce opposition to Ahmadinejad administration’s policies, and at times signaling Majlis’s readiness to impeach the embattled head of the executive branch. Both Larijani and Hadad are among the most loyal and fiercest supporters of the country’s all-powerful supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei.


UPDATE: One of our good readers has correctly reminded us that Larijani's selection was for the post of Interim/Acting Speaker, and as such he is not technically re-elected as speaker yet. My understanding is this is just a procedural matter. But many thanks to our friend and all our other longtime readers who have helped us throughout these years in many ways, including correcting our reporting, as in this case, or editing, etc. Thanks a million!

Conservatives and Religious Fundamentalists Win Parliamentary Elections in Iran

The United Principlist Front (UPF), a coalition of traditional conservative politicians loyal to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenie, won the runoff elections overwhelmingly. In Tehran, the UPF led by Qolam-Ali Hadad Adel, Khamenei’s senior advisor and father-in-law to his powerful son Mojtaba, will control 18 of the 30, or 60 percent of the seats. Preliminary results from the provinces show the same trend.

The Resistance Front (RF), a coalition of ultraconservative politicians led by the fundamentalist Shia senior cleric Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, has finished second in Tehran, capturing 33 percent of the seats. Two independent candidates were also elected in Tehran.

The supporters of President Ahmadinejad and his chief of staff Mashaie were big losers in the elections. They did not gain a single seat in Tehran and their prospects in the provinces were as bleak. Opposition figures and supporters of the Green Movement were not allowed to run in the elections.

The Ninth Majlis, the newly elected parliament, will convene late May. It is arguably the most right-wing Majlis in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Majlis Elections in Iran

Sharp Turn to the Right

In the second round of the parliamentary elections taking place in the country today, 65 of 290 seats are being contested. The traditional conservatives loyal to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei and the ultraconservatives and fundamentalists loyal to Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi are expected to dominate the Ninth Majlis, making it the most right-wing Majlis in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Qolam Ali Haddad Adel, Khamenei’s senior advisor and father-in-law to his powerful son Mojtaba, is expected to be chosen as the speaker of the new Majlis. President Ahmadinejad and his circle of supporters seem to be the biggest losers in these elections.

Campaigning for Majlis Runoff Elections Begins

The week-long campaigning period for the second round of Iran’s parliamentary elections began today. 130 candidates will run for the remaining 65 Majlis seats in the runoff elections on 4 May. In the first round, no candidates could receive 50 percent of the votes in these 65 districts, prompting the runoffs between the top two vote getters in each district. Conservative candidates allied to Iran’s supreme leaders dominated the first round of elections and they are expected to sweep the remaining seats on 4 May.

Second Round of Elections Set for Early May

Iran announced that the second round of parliamentary elections for the Ninth Majlis will be held May 4th. In Tehran, only five candidates were elected in the first round earlier this month, with 25 other seats being contested in the second round. There will be second-round elections mostly in other major cities as well.

Iran - Discrepancies in Government’s Data on Elections Turnout

64 Percent or 54 Percent?

Yesterday, in a press conference in Tehran, Iran’s Interior Minister Brig. Gen. Mustafa Mohammad Najjar told reporters that 26,472,760 citizens cast their votes in the nationwide elections for the Ninth Majlis. The minister’s remarks were widely distributed and also appeared on the Interior Ministry’s website. Two weeks ago, Gen. Najjar had officially announced the number of eligible voters nationwide at 48,288,799. Considering that the Interior Ministry is in charge of the elections in Iran, these figures are as official as they can get.

Now let’s see what the percentage of those voted is to those eligible to vote, or otherwise the turnout: 26,472,760/48,288,799= 54%.

The trouble is that the minister himself has calculated and announced the turnout to be at 64%, a figure widely quoted by the media, including by this lowly blogger. The government has also used the figure to declare a moral victory of sort over the opposition. But didn’t they just add 10% to the actual turnout?

In the elections in Tehran, there was also an odd development: the eligible voters reported were 2.5 million people less than the number for the Eight Majlis in 2008. Considering the rapid growth of the population in Tehran, this statistic does not seem correct. As a result, the Interior Minister’s report that 48% of eligible voters in Tehran turned out in the polling stations seems also to be inflated.

Extreme Right Wins Parliamentary Elections in Iran

The extreme right in Iran is the victor in the elections for the Ninth Majlis. The ruling conservative United Principlist Front and the ultraconservative Resistance Front of Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi are poised to capture nearly 80 percent of the seats in the new Majlis.

There would be a second round of voting in Tehran, where none but the top 5 candidates received more the required 25 percent of the votes to be elected. The unusual development in Tehran, and some other districts outside the capital, was the result of the two leading conservative groups splitting the votes almost equally between them.

The Ministry of Interior has estimated the turnout at 64 percent nationwide and 48 percent in Tehran. The highest turnout ever reported in the parliamentary elections was 71 percent for the Fifth Majlis in 1996, and the lowest turnout was in 2008 for the current Majlis at 51 percent. The average reported turnout in all the nine elections is 60 percent.

Conservative Groups Leading in Iran Elections

The Iranian authorities report turnouts of 64 percent nationwide and 48 percent in Tehran in the elections for the Ninth Majlis.

In Tehran, with one-third of ballots counted, the ruling United Principlist Front (UPF) and the ultraconservative Resistance Front (RF) candidates are in the lead, with their top candidates capturing 28 and 27 percent of the votes respectively. Only a single candidate not belonging to the two groups, Ali Motahari of the Voice of Nation, is among the top vote getters expected to be elected from Tehran.

Qolam-Ali Hadad Adel, a former speaker of Majlis and Ayatollah Khamenei’s political confidant (whose daughter is married to Khamenei’s son), and who was supported by both UPF and RF, is leading in Tehran with 405,053 votes, or 46 percent of the votes counted. UPF’s top candidate, Hojatoleslam Mohammad Hassan Abutorabi, is at second place with 245,806 or 28 percent, and RF’s top candidate, Morteza Agha-Tehrani, is third with 238,081 or 27 percent.

Ali Motahari, the top candidate in the Voice of Nation list, is at the eighth place with 153,212 votes or 17 percent of the votes counted so far.

Elections in Iran

Iranians showed up at polling stations across the country to cast their votes in the elections for Majlis, the Iranian parliament. Friday 2 March 2012.

Photos: IRNA, ISNA, Mehr News Agency

Friday’s Elections

By Nader Uskowi

The elections for the Ninth Majlis will be held tomorrow across Iran. I ran as one of the youngest candidates from Tehran in the First Majlis. That was March 1980! The elections then were not a choice between conservative and ultraconservative candidates. They included a wide range of candidates from right to left. I finished first among the leftist candidates, with more votes than Toudeh’s Kianouri. But it was the right in a “Grand Coalition” between the Islamic Republic Party let by Ali Khamenei and the Society of Combatant Clerics led by the late Mehdi Shahabadi that carried the day and won the majority in the First Majlis. Ayatollah Shahabadi was a friend. We met and befriended at SAVAK’s notorious Komiteh Prison during the last months of the shah’s government, and remained friends until he lost his life in a terrorist attack. That was the atmosphere then.

32 years later, the Society of Combatant Clerics, this time led by Mahdavi Kani, is the leading force in the United Principlist Front, expected to keep its majority in the Ninth Majlis. But this time their main opponents are the like-minded conservatives, especially the ultraconservatives led by Mesbah Yazdi’s Resistance Front. No Left, Center, reformist or any form of opposition groups or coalitions were allowed to run. This is the atmosphere now.

I guess 32 years of uninterrupted rule by any group, led by a leader for life, creates such atmosphere. The opposition candidates instead of running in the elections are either inside the notorious Evin Prison or not allowed to run. The Ayatollah Shahabadi I knew, if he was with us today, would have cringed at the conditions surrounding the elections for the Ninth Majlis and their eerie similarities to the shah’s time which he spent so many years in prison trying to change it.