Composition of the Supervisory Board for the Parliamentary and Assembly of Experts Elections in Tehran Determined

The composition of the Supervisory Board for the Parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections in Tehran has been determined with the membership of four members of the Guardian Council and the Attorney General of the country. According to a report on Tuesday, August 25, by Tasnim News Agency, the members of this board are Ahmad Jannati, Mohammad Yazdi, Mohammad Reza Alizadeh, Siamak Rahpeyk, and Ebrahim Raisi. Two of the members are clerics from the Guardian Council, two others are legal experts from the council, and the fifth member is Ebrahim Raisi, the Attorney General of the country. The tenth parliamentary elections and the fifth Assembly of Experts elections are scheduled to be held simultaneously on Friday, February 26, 2016, across Iran, and if the parliamentary elections require a second round, they will be continued in May 2017. Meanwhile, according to Tasnim, Mahmoud Alavi, the Iranian Minister of Intelligence, has also announced that "to confirm the qualifications of candidates for the upcoming elections, we have considered a council called the Qualification Confirmation Council, which has eight members, and a cleric accepted by the Ministry of Intelligence is at its head." Mr. Alavi had previously stated in a television program that "playing a role" in the protests of 2009 is a red line for confirming the qualifications of candidates for parliamentary representation; he emphasized that "participation in gatherings, norm violations, assaults on security forces, and creating security challenges for the regime" are criteria for disqualification. The issue of election oversight has been accompanied by controversies in recent weeks, to the extent that Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, on August 19, implicitly protested the widespread disqualification of election candidates, stating that the Guardian Council is the overseer, and the government is the executor of the elections, and "oversight and execution should not be mixed." These remarks by Mr. Rouhani provoked protests from several principlists and Friday prayer leaders, and at the same time, Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in a sharp reaction, accused the Iranian president of trying to "weaken" the Guardian Council. Meanwhile, in response to these remarks, Ali Motahari, a representative from Tehran in the parliament, also criticized the statements of the IRGC commander, emphasizing that the military's entry into the political and electoral arena "is not in the country's interest." According to the information portal for the tenth parliamentary elections, the registration period for candidates for the tenth parliamentary elections will be from December 19 to December 25 of this year. The review of candidates' backgrounds in the four authorities and their qualifications will also take place from December 20, 2015, to December 30, 2015 (within 5 days of each inquiry). The opportunity for disqualified candidates to file complaints will be from January 5, 2016, to January 8, 2016. The opportunity for the Guardian Council to address candidates' complaints will be from February 9, 2016, to February 17, 2016. Additionally, candidates for the tenth parliamentary elections and the fifth Assembly of Experts elections can campaign from February 18, 2016, to February 25, 2016. The prohibition on election campaigning for candidates and their supporters will be on February 26, 2016.