Guardian Council Rejects Provincial Election Bill

Najaatollah Ebrahimiyaan, the spokesperson for the Guardian Council, stated on Wednesday, July 1st, that the council found the provincial election bill to have 'multiple flaws' and has rejected it. According to Fars News Agency, Najaatollah Ebrahimiyaan mentioned that the provincial election bill for the Islamic Consultative Assembly was discussed in the Guardian Council's meeting on Wednesday afternoon and was deemed contrary to Islamic law and regulations. He added that this bill faces multiple issues, the details of which will be published later on the Guardian Council's information website. In this context, Najaatollah Ebrahimiyaan told Tasnim: 'The main axes of this bill have been criticized.' The spokesperson for the Guardian Council further noted: 'These flaws are quite similar to those raised against the previous bill passed by the Islamic Consultative Assembly in 2007.' Despite the opposition from President Hassan Rouhani's government, the Islamic Consultative Assembly approved the generalities of the provincial election bill on April 21st. Out of 233 representatives present in the assembly, 149 voted in favor, 69 against, and 9 abstained. According to this bill, candidates who obtain at least 15% of the valid votes in their electoral district and also receive the highest votes in the entire province would become the representatives of that province from that electoral district. The provincial election bill had been previously proposed in the assembly. For the first time, such a proposal was presented in 1999 during the fifth assembly, and again, several representatives from the sixth assembly submitted it in 2002 in the same form. Meanwhile, representatives from the seventh assembly also pursued the provincial election bill in 2007 after making changes to the proposals from the fifth and sixth assemblies. Although the generalities of the provincial election bill were rejected in the fifth assembly, it was approved in the sixth and seventh assemblies and sent to the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council opposed both of these assembly approvals. However, after the Guardian Council's opposition in the seventh assembly, the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the seventh assembly declared the Guardian Council's objections as 'substantial' and 'not resolvable,' resulting in the urgency of a new proposal, which included minor changes to the previously approved proposal, failing to gain votes.