Formation of 'Special Task Force for Election Crimes' by the Judiciary

Sadegh Larijani, the head of the Iranian Judiciary, has ordered the formation of a 'Special Task Force for the Prevention and Handling of Election Crimes.' The head of the Judiciary issued a circular regarding this matter, which was published on Saturday, September 14, on the website of the Judiciary's Public Relations Office. According to this circular, the responsibility of this special task force in provincial centers falls to Ebrahim Raisi, the Attorney General of the country, and this task force can utilize 'the capacities of other relevant institutions' for its actions. In another section of this circular, it is stated that the heads of the judiciary in each province must establish branches to handle election crimes out of turn. In all counties of the province, a similar task force will operate under the responsibility of the county judiciary head and in coordination with the provincial task force. The circular mentions that 'public awareness and guidance, counseling, and persuading individuals, legal entities, executive managers, organizations, candidates, and their campaign heads with the aim of alignment, deterrence, and promoting adherence to the law' are among the responsibilities of this task force. At the end of this circular, it is stated that the execution of these duties by this task force will have a 'significant role in implementing the directives' of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. However, Sadegh Larijani did not provide any explanation regarding the 'directives' of Ayatollah Khamenei concerning the upcoming elections. 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 extend to two rounds, they will continue in May 2016. The issuance of this new circular comes at a time when the issue of election oversight has recently become a point of contention between the government and some other institutions, with President Hassan Rouhani implicitly protesting the widespread disqualification of election candidates on August 19, 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.' Mr. Rouhani emphasized that 'the body that should determine whether someone is qualified to participate in the elections or not is the executive board.' The executive boards of the elections operate under the Ministry of Interior and thus the government. However, Sadegh Amoli Larijani, on September 24, accused Hassan Rouhani of making 'populist remarks' and urged the Guardian Council to 'stand firm on the issue of elections, which is the fate of the country.' In this context, Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, also accused the Iranian president of attempting to 'weaken' the Guardian Council, and Siamak Rah-Peyk, the deputy executive of the Guardian Council, warned that the Guardian Council, based on its 'legal powers,' could also 'invalidate the entire election.' Mohammad Yazdi, the head of the Assembly of Experts, also stated that 'we have no compromises with anyone' regarding the elections and emphasized that 'the Ministry of Interior is the executor of the elections, and the Guardian Council is the overseer, and its oversight is substantive, not merely observational.' The Islamic Coalition Party, one of the major conservative parties in Iran, also stated in a statement that Hassan Rouhani's remarks about the Guardian Council's oversight of the elections were 'unwise' and a 'violation of the President's oath,' emphasizing that 'if you do not intelligently thwart the enemy's roadmap in the upcoming elections, the sedition of 2009 may be reconstructed in a different way.' The term '2009 sedition' is used by Islamic Republic officials to refer to the protests against the announced results of the 2009 elections in Iran. During the fourth parliamentary elections and after the change in Iran's election law, the Guardian Council declared its supervisory role in parliamentary elections as 'substantive' and based on this role, in each parliamentary election, disqualified several candidates due to not meeting the conditions. According to previous interpretations by the members of the Guardian Council, 'substantive oversight' includes all executive stages of the elections, including the approval and disqualification of candidates.