Ali Motahari: We Will Likely Have a Better Situation in the Upcoming Parliamentary Elections

Ali Motahari, a member of parliament, stated: "The composition of the Guardian Council has improved and more moderate individuals have entered it." He added: "I suspect we will have a better situation in the upcoming parliamentary elections." According to ISNA, this member of parliament spoke on Tuesday, December 9, at Sahand Industrial University in Tabriz regarding the qualification review of candidates in the parliamentary elections and the supervisory oversight, saying: "To the extent that investigations beyond the four inquiries about individuals' personal circumstances are acceptable, it is not acceptable to disqualify individuals because they have made criticisms or participated in demonstrations or been part of a specific candidate's campaign, as this leads to the elimination of free individuals." The Guardian Council states that, according to Article 99 of the Constitution, it is responsible for overseeing elections. In 1991, this council announced a new interpretation of Article 99, stating that its oversight is "supervisory and includes all stages of the electoral process, including the approval and disqualification of candidates." Using this supervisory oversight, the Guardian Council has been able to prevent critics and opponents from entering the parliamentary election competitions in Iran. In the eighth parliamentary elections, the Guardian Council disqualified more than 40% of the candidates. Meanwhile, Mohammad Reza Khatami, a member of the central council of the Participation Front, recently referred to the Revolutionary Guards and Basij as military parties and stated: "All the planning of reformists is focused on their own capacities. We believe that if reformists utilize their capacities, even if the Guardian Council disqualifies all their main figures in the elections, and if military parties want to interfere in the elections, victory will still belong to the reformists." The elections for the tenth term of the Islamic Consultative Assembly will be held in two rounds in Esfand 1394 and Ordibehesht 1395. The first round of these elections will coincide with the elections for the fifth term of the Assembly of Experts. In another part of his speech in Tabriz, Ali Motahari stated: "The democratic nature of a government is determined by how it deals with its opponents, and the existence of a critical and opposing minority is beneficial for the entire society." This member of parliament also emphasized regarding the recent arrests of several journalists: "I am not opposed to the principle of arrest if there is evidence, but when we have the Ministry of Intelligence, other institutions should not do this. The president can also issue warnings as the head of the executive branch and the executor of the Constitution, especially since this was done under the pretext of infiltration." Motahari's reference is to the recent arrests of journalists by the Intelligence Organization of the Revolutionary Guards. The news agency "Tasnim" and the Central News Unit reported on November 12 about the arrest of "a number of members of an infiltration network linked to the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom" by agents of the Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Organization. Eisa Saharkhiz, the director of domestic press at the Ministry of Culture during Khatami's presidency, and Ehsan Mazandarani, the editor-in-chief of the Farhikhtegan newspaper, are among those recently arrested by the Revolutionary Guards' Intelligence Organization.