Interior Minister: The number of eligible voters will be announced in two weeks

Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the Interior Minister, stated on Saturday, December 25, that the Ministry of Interior will not announce the number of eligible voters for now, but after coordination with the Statistical Center and the Civil Registration Organization, the final number will be announced within one to two weeks. In an interview with the second channel of Iran's state television, Rahmani Fazli said regarding the eligible voter statistics for the elections: "For now, this number will not be announced because the Statistical Center and the Civil Registration Organization need to coordinate to convey the final figure to the public." The Interior Minister added: "I know this figure, but perhaps it is not appropriate to disclose it at this time, as there were individuals we announced to come for their national ID cards, but for example, there were two million people who have been repeatedly asked to come to clarify their status, and we will ultimately try to finalize this number within a week or two." In the ninth parliamentary elections, the number of eligible voters and the participation rate were accompanied by controversies. Some experts on Iranian issues believed that the number of eligible voters in this election did not match the figures announced by the then Interior Minister. They accused the Ministry of Interior under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government of manipulating the eligible voter population, arguing that the number of those qualified to participate in the ninth parliamentary elections was estimated by the Statistical Center to be over 50 million, not 48 million. Mohammad Mostafa Najjar, the then Interior Minister, announced the participation rate in the ninth parliamentary elections to be 64%, but the aggregation of votes reported on the Ministry of Interior's website showed a total of 29 million 880 thousand votes, which, based on the participation rate and the eligible voter population announced by the Ministry of Interior, would result in a participation rate of 61%. Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli further clarified in another part of the interview that the qualification review for over 12,000 candidates for the Islamic Consultative Assembly elections began on Saturday. Regarding the qualification review for the Assembly of Experts candidates, he stated: "For the candidates of the Assembly of Experts, those who have been qualified and request a re-examination have from January 30 to object to their disqualification for five days, and usually, the re-examination takes about ten days, and ultimately we will announce the results on February 10. Additionally, qualified candidates will have two weeks to conduct their election campaigns, and from March 26, we will impose a ban on campaigning for the Assembly of Experts elections." He mentioned that the names of the candidates for the Islamic Consultative Assembly elections have been sent to four verification agencies (related to the police, judiciary, civil registration, and Ministry of Intelligence), and these agencies will provide the results to the Ministry of Interior by January 4. Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli added: "The notifications of disqualification for the candidates will be communicated to them on January 5." The Interior Minister emphasized that we must be accountable to all candidates, stating that if they are not qualified, we must provide them with an explanation. According to him, "The final names of the candidates for the Islamic Consultative Assembly elections will be announced on February 16, and candidates will have from February 17 to February 24 for one week to conduct their election campaigns." The first round of elections for the tenth term of the Islamic Consultative Assembly will be held on March 7, 2016, concurrently with the elections for the fifth term of the Assembly of Experts. Meanwhile, Mohammad Hossein Najabat, the cultural deputy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, stated that the Guardian Council should not allow the parliament to be occupied by "infiltrators associated with the counter-revolution." According to the Fars news agency on Saturday, Mohammad Hossein Najabat, speaking about the upcoming elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts, described these elections as a very important test for the Ministry of Interior and the Guardian Council. He stated: "The Ministry of Interior must prove how much it adheres to the Constitution, and if it fails to fulfill its legal duties, the Guardian Council must take action." The cultural deputy of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commented on some of the candidates for the March 7 elections, stating that "they caused unrest and brought insecurity to the country, showing that they do not accept the law." This military official warned that individuals he referred to as "supporters of the seditionists" are waiting for an opportunity to instigate another sedition and will become active as soon as they see a weakness in the system. Supporters of Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, refer to the protests against the election results in 2009 as "sedition."