Criteria of the Guardian Council in Assessing Candidates' Qualifications

Following requests from some principlists to disqualify reformists who protested the results of the 2009 presidential election, the spokesperson for the Guardian Council announced that "any comments and actions" regarding these protests will be the "criteria" for the council in assessing the qualifications of candidates for the upcoming elections. According to Tasnim News Agency, Nejatollah Ebrahimiann stated on Sunday, January 6, that the "behavior and speech" of candidates for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts that are "indicative of support for the sedition" and "such titles that are red lines for the system and the leader" of the Islamic Republic will be taken into consideration. He added, "The behavior and speech of candidates must not be seen as participation and cooperation with illegal actions in 2009, but we must examine each case. The spokesperson emphasized that candidates must have a "clear and distinct boundary with sedition." Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic and his close associates refer to the protests against the 2009 presidential election results as "sedition." Several appointees of the Supreme Leader, including Hossein Nejat, the cultural deputy of the Revolutionary Guards, and several Friday prayer leaders have asked the Ministry of Interior and the Guardian Council to disqualify reformists who protested the 2009 presidential election results in the upcoming elections for the Assembly of Experts and the Islamic Consultative Assembly. In contrast, the Supreme Policy Council of Reformists, in its first statement, requested that the responsible bodies for conducting elections assess the qualifications of candidates based solely on legal documents. Several reformists, including Mostafa Moein, a candidate from the Participation Front in the 2005 presidential election, Mohammad Reza Aref, former first vice president, Ahmad Khorram, former minister of roads, Mohsen and Fatemeh Hashemi, children of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Morteza Alviri, former mayor of Tehran, Ebrahim Asgarzadeh, former secretary-general of the Solidarity Party, Mohammad Javad Haqshenas and Rasoul Montajebnia from the National Trust Party, and Hossein Kashafi, deputy secretary-general of the Participation Party, have registered as candidates for the Islamic Consultative Assembly. Meanwhile, some figures close to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Discernment Council, including Hassan Khomeini, Mohammad Mousavi Bojnourdi, Mohammad Javad Hojjati Kermani, Rasoul Montajebnia, Majid Ansari, Mohammad Ashrafi Isfahani, and Mohammad Mehdi Faqihi have registered as candidates for the Assembly of Experts. According to Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the Iranian Minister of Interior, 12,123 people have registered for the Islamic Consultative Assembly elections, which is unprecedented in the history of the Assembly elections. While Ministry of Interior officials welcomed the increase in candidates, Mohammad Yazdi, the head of the Assembly of Experts, and Ahmad Jannati, the secretary of the Guardian Council, expressed "regret" and "concern" about the increase in candidates. Meanwhile, Hossein Shariatmadari, representative of the Supreme Leader in Kayhan newspaper, referred to the increase in candidate registrations as "bulk registration" in his Saturday editorial. He accused reformists and opponents of supervisory oversight of hoping that "with a bulk influx, they would deprive the Guardian Council of the necessary time to assess qualifications" and also of using "widespread disqualifications as a basis for a propaganda assault against the system." The Guardian Council of Iran has been repeatedly accused of "widespread disqualification" of candidates, and reports indicate that in the eighth parliamentary elections, in which reformists also participated, 40% of candidates were disqualified. In 2011, for the ninth parliamentary elections, 5,382 people registered, but according to Abbasali Kadkhodai, the former spokesperson of the Guardian Council, only "55% were approved for qualification." At that time, according to this official, executive committees disqualified 1,200 candidates, and the Guardian Council disqualified about 1,000 more.