The Cost of Holding Elections Estimated at 160 Billion Tomans

One day after the head of the country’s election headquarters announced that over one million people would participate in the elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts, the Deputy Minister of Interior stated that the cost of holding the elections is estimated at 160 billion tomans. According to ILNA news agency on Saturday, November 7, quoting Hossein Ali Amiri, spokesman and Deputy Minister of Interior, the budget for the 10th parliamentary elections and the 5th Assembly of Experts elections will be provided by the government. The 10th parliamentary elections and the 5th Assembly of Experts elections are scheduled to be held simultaneously on Friday, February 26, 2016, across Iran, and if the parliamentary elections go to a second round, they will continue in May 2016. In this year’s elections, as stated by Mohammad Hossein Maqimi, the political-security deputy of the Ministry of Interior and head of the election headquarters, more than one million people will participate in two executive and supervisory areas. Meanwhile, the Deputy Minister of Interior emphasized that there has been a "good interaction" between the Guardian Council and the Ministry of Interior, the two bodies responsible for overseeing and conducting the elections, and that there is "no specific disagreement" between these two institutions. However, one of the contentious issues between these two bodies, namely how to conduct electronic elections in metropolitan areas, has not yet been finalized, as Mr. Amiri mentioned in the same discussion that "we have not yet reached a consensus on the location and number of provinces where elections will be held electronically." He also discussed another contentious issue, the use of transparent ballot boxes in this year’s elections, stating that a sample of the transparent ballot boxes has been presented to the Guardian Council and "one of them has been approved." Mr. Amiri noted that the feature of the approved ballot box is that "while being transparent, the ballot papers are visible, but the votes are not readable." Regarding the electronic elections, earlier on October 18, the Deputy Minister of Interior thanked the Guardian Council for "approving the technical equipment for fully electronic elections," but a day before that, the spokesman for the Guardian Council stated that this council only approved the appearance of the electronic ballot box and that "conducting elections electronically requires changes to laws and regulations, and the government must submit a bill to the parliament in this regard." Nejatollah Ebrahimi also emphasized that "it cannot be said with certainty" that the upcoming elections for the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Assembly of Experts in metropolitan areas will be held electronically. The use of transparent ballot boxes was also another contentious issue between the Guardian Council and the Ministry of Interior, but it was ultimately announced in September of this year that the transparent ballot boxes have been approved by the Guardian Council. The head of the election headquarters announced on Saturday that several training courses have been held in provincial centers to educate local election officials. Mr. Maqimi, referring to the special election exam for training governors and mayors with electoral rights, stated that "most governors and deputy governors answered 80% of the questions posed in this exam correctly, and the remaining 20% must be completed before the elections." He mentioned that to complete this training, "11 training courses in 18 provincial centers" have been planned, of which six have been held so far, and "five more will be held before the elections on March 7." Mr. Maqimi had previously stated that the written exam on the election law was held on October 14 for over 1,400 governors and deputy governors to enhance their mastery of implementing this law. According to him, currently, 430 governors and 1,055 deputy governors are active in the country.