Call for Transparency in Open Letter to Reformist Policy Council

More than 1,600 journalists, students, and civil and political activists have called for "transparency" regarding the process of compiling the list for the Islamic City and Village Councils elections in an open letter to the Reformist Policy Council of Iran, adding that the social base of the reformists has become "deeply frustrated" with the performance of their representatives. In this letter, which continues to collect signatures in cyberspace, four other requests have been made to this council. Among the requests of the signatories are the "announcement of the names of the real and legal persons of the selection council for the joint list of reformists" and "clarification and explanation of the criteria for selecting individuals, how to weigh them, and how to quantify these criteria." They have also requested "no conflict of interest between the members of the selection council and the candidates of the unified list." The fifth request of the signatories is the "commitment of the selection council to timely and transparent accountability regarding the future performance of the selected individuals." This letter was prepared and published following the "controversial" performance of some members of the "Hope" list that entered the parliament and the announcement of candidacies of a significant number of reformist activists for entry into the Islamic City and Village Councils. The elections for the fifth term of the Islamic City and Village Councils are scheduled to be held on May 18, 2017, and reports indicate the approval of a significant number of reformist candidates in this election cycle. The high number of reformist candidates in this election has led to disagreements over presenting electoral lists. Mohammad Reza Rahchamani, the rotating president of the Reformist Coordination Council, also stated on May 6 to the "Rah Dana" website that reformists are "currently divided into two groups." According to Mr. Rahchamani, reformists are currently operating under two titles: "Policy Council" and "Reformist Coordination Council." He added that the electoral lists of these two groups in the upcoming elections will have "commonalities, but until the commonalities are definitively established, it is not possible to talk about their number." According to Rahchamani, "Currently, more than 300 applicants have approached the Coordination Council and want to be on this council's list." The disagreements and lobbying among reformists over determining the members of electoral lists, which have existed previously, have faced explicit critical reactions from a group of political and civil activists in this election cycle. The aforementioned letter is one of these reactions, in which the signatories criticize the performance of reformists in past elections, stating that if they do not learn from the past, they will inevitably "repeat past mistakes at greater costs." They have addressed the members of the Reformist Policy Council, stating that "our belief in reforms is a lifelong and unconditional belief in the group and faction." The signatories of this letter also wrote that they are "not subservient and obedient to the electoral lists of factions and political tendencies, and our preference is to choose the deserving." They stated that "our votes for the [reformist] list in past periods were not out of comprehensive belief in individuals and complete satisfaction, but out of necessity and belief in even minor reform changes." The letter added that "our minimum expectation in every election is to provide a list of deserving individuals free from corruption and power-seeking and without considering personal interests or family affiliations." It further stated that this expectation was not met in the fourth city council elections and the tenth parliament, and that "the output of the lists and the performance of the elected candidates have caused deep frustration among the social base of reformism towards their representatives." In another part of this letter, it is mentioned that "polarizing the electoral atmosphere" as the only solution for the proposed list's vote has become "less effective in each election cycle, and the repeated use of arguments of choosing between the bad and the worse has turned into a repetitive, exhausting, and despairing process." At the end of this letter, the Reformist Policy Council is warned that if they ignore the five mentioned requests, "the result will be a short-term decrease in public trust and a drop in votes, and in the long term, the consequences will be much heavier."