Parliament Approves General Principles of Election Law Reform

On Wednesday, January 9, the Islamic Consultative Assembly approved the general principles of a bill to amend parts of the parliamentary election law. According to ISNA, the general principles of the bill regarding the provincialization of parliamentary elections were approved with 155 votes in favor, 64 against, and two abstentions out of 231 representatives present in the parliament. If this bill is finally approved, the elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly will be held in a provincial-district manner. Meanwhile, at the suggestion of one representative and with 186 votes in favor, 24 against, and four abstentions, this bill was referred to the Internal Affairs and Councils Commission of the parliament for detailed examination. In this regard, Salman Samani, Deputy Minister of Interior for Parliamentary Affairs and Coordination with Provinces, announced the government's approval of the general principles of the election law reform bill, stating: 'The government's approval of the general principles of this bill is conditional on further review of the details of this bill in the Councils Commission of the parliament.' According to this bill, candidates for parliamentary elections must obtain at least 10 percent of the votes from a 'sub-electoral district' and the highest votes from the relevant province to qualify for representation. Additionally, each candidate must either be born in the sub-electoral district where they register or have at least five years of continuous residence in that sub-electoral district, or have prior representation experience from that district. This is not the first time the Islamic Consultative Assembly has attempted to change the electoral structure in parliamentary electoral districts in Iran. The proposal to provincialize the electoral districts of the Islamic Consultative Assembly was first introduced in 1999 during the fifth parliament but did not receive the necessary votes. The sixth parliament representatives also submitted it in 2002 in the same form to the presiding board. The seventh parliament representatives pursued the provincialization of parliamentary elections again in 2007 after making changes to the proposals from the fifth and sixth parliaments. Although the general principles of the provincialization bill were rejected in the fifth parliament, they advanced to the stage of receiving the Guardian Council's opinion in the sixth and seventh parliaments. This bill was also approved in the ninth parliament. In June 2015, parliament representatives approved the general principles of the provincialization bill, but the Guardian Council deemed it contrary to Sharia and the Constitution in July of the same year. Reasons such as 'intensifying local, ethnic, and tribal conflicts,' 'reducing public participation in elections,' 'increasing public costs,' and 'creating unjust discrimination' were cited as the main reasons for the Guardian Council's opposition to this bill. Currently, the Islamic Consultative Assembly has 207 electoral districts. Considering that five seats are allocated to religious minorities, the remaining 202 districts are divided into single-member and multi-member districts. Tehran, with 30 seats, is considered the largest multi-member electoral district.