THE UNITED STATES AND THE IRANIAN ELECTION

To whose voice is Kerry listening?

In a poorly chosen moment, standing next to the Israeli President in Tel Aviv, John Kerry criticized the Iranian presidential election as undemocratic and unfair. “I can't think of anybody in the world looking at Iran's election who wouldn't be amazed by a process by which an unelected guardian council which is unaccountable to the Iranian people has actually disqualified hundreds of candidates, potential candidates, according to very vague criteria which the Iranian people are not privileged to know or judge by,” he said. “The Council narrowed a list of almost seven hundred potential candidates down to...officials of their choice, based solely on who represents the regime’s interests,” Kerry said shortly before he left Israel.

Ayatollah Beheshti was one of the most influential postrevolutionary leaders. He was killed in a bomb blast at the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party in the summer of 1981. The blast killed more than 75 people including 15 members of the parliament. The Organization of Mojahedin Khalq claimed responsibility for the attack. The terrorist organization now represents the main hope for many American hawks to bring "democracy" to Iran!

In 1979, when the Constitutional Assembly was busy drafting a new constitution for the postrevolutionary Iran, the framers of the new constitution tried hard to define how the newly born Islamic republic is distinct from communist countries and liberal democracies. In a scathing rejection of liberal democratic regimes, the influential Vice Chair of the Assembly, Ayatollah Beheshti, called electoral politics in the United States a sham. “In reality,” he remarked in a Chomskyite fashion of Manufacturing Consent, “people think they are free, but they are ruled by the capitalist class which controls all the bureaucratic instruments of the state and all the mass media.  The ruling classes formally respect the electorate, but through the monopoly of mass media, they direct voting patterns of the public and shape public opinion.  They respect the public only so long as it does not contradict the basic interests of the ruling class.”

Both Kerry and Beheshti have a point. There is no doubt that corporations have hijacked the American electoral politics. It is true that there are no political or legal institutions that determine who can and who cannot run for the presidency in the United States (except in the cases of constitutional requirements). But it is an open secret that without the consent of major corporations no candidate will be considered to be viable in the two-party American political theater.  People in corporate high offices are a different kind of “unelected” officials who steer elections toward the interests of ruling classes. Although this has been a general characteristic of the capitalist state, in recent decades, with unregulated mergers of industrial, military, entertainment, and news media, the boundaries between the political elite and corporate executives have increasingly been muddied.

Who is being represented in a "representative government?"

There are two major problems with statements such as Kerry’s latest declaration about the lack of democracy in Iran.

1.              The US is unashamedly hypocritical in its policy of promotion of democracy and human rights. Just a cursory look at the US allies in the region, from the Saudi family to the autocratic Persian Gulf Sheikhdoms, shows that for the United States the real problem in Iran is not democracy but competing regional interests. In the last 60 years or so, the US has shown that it can easily live with and defend brutal dictatorships so long as they preserve and promote American interests. In other words, the United States lacks moral authority vis-à-vis Iran to play the role of its democracy guardian angel.

2.              Americans know all too well that behind whatever faction in Iran they throw their support, it will destroy them. When are we going to appreciate the fact that the American intervention in Iranian factional undermines the reformists and strengthens the hardliners.  These mistakes have been repeated so many times that some conspiracy theorists might conclude that the US intentionally wants to keep hardliners in power in Iran. You could never underestimate the benefits of sustaining a good, barbaric, and irrational enemy.

The Iranian experience has also been far from ideal.
On all the ballot boxes in Iran there is a reminder of Ayatollah Khomeini's declaration that:
"The final arbiter is the nation's ballot!"

مصطفی تاج‌زاده: ميزان رأی رهبر است

In a statement from his cell in Evin prison in Tehran, Mostafa Tajzadeh,
one of the most influential political strategists of the reformists,
lambasted the recent Guardian Council decisions. The title of his letter is:
"The final arbiter is the Supreme Leader's ballot!"
He has been a vocal critic of the Supreme Leader and
his unlimited authority over the nation's affairs.

The Guardian Council limits the scope and the possibilities of Iranian elections.

Wall Street and Corporate Executives limit the scope and the possibilities of American elections.

There are those in the US who intend to use any pretext for an all out war against Iran. A day before Kerry’s comment, the Senate passed Resolution 65, conveying the U.S. support for potential Israeli military strikes on Iran. I am not an alarmist. But one should take American interest in democracy in Iran with a grain of Persian Gulf salt.

WHITHER THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC?

  مطهری: آیت‌الله خمینی هم اگر ثبت‌نام می‌کرد، رد صلاحیت می‌شد

Ali Motahhari, a conservative member of the majlis, was one of the supporters of Rafsanjani's candidacy. After the Guardian Council disqualified Rafsanjani, in a scathing open letter, he accused the Council of playing politics with their constitutional power. In the letter he stated: "Had Ayatollah Khomeini registered for the presidency, he would have been disqualified!"

One of the key elements that has sustained the Islamic Republic since its establishment in 1979 has been the diversity of its political elite. In the short history of the republic, presidential elections have always manifested this diversity and turned the election into an arena of political struggle between factions with deep disagreements about the future direction of the country. For that very reason, it has always been difficult to speak of the Islamic Republic as “a regime” with a uniform and unified polity. The very “regimehood” (if there is such a word) of the Islamic Republic has always been contested from within.

Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of Ayatollah Khomeini, also wrote an open letter expressing
his disbelief regarding the Guardian Council's rejection of Rafsanjani's candidacy.
By and large, Ayatollah Khomeini's descendants ally themselves with the reformists.

 Although there always existed a hegemonic conception of what the Islamic Republic was all about, that hegemony was never absolute or as dominant as it might appear from the outside. From the very meaning of the Guardianship of the Jurist (velāyat-e faqih) to the relation between Islam and governance, from the scope and function of democratic institutions to their relationship with the power of religious authorities, from the significance of constitutional law to the authority of Islamic shari’a, all were topics of heated debates and contestations rather than foundations of governance in Iran.

That is why the Iranian revolution has never seemed settled and has taken a meandering path toward institutionalization. Now it seems like a major turning point is in the making. Under the leadership of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, by eliminating the reformist elements, the Islamic Republic is taking the first steps toward uniformity.

خواهشمند است دخالت فرمایید و نشان دهید 

ولایت فقیه می خواهد جلوی دیکتاتوری را بگیرد

Dr. Zahra Mostafavi, Ayatollah Khomeini's daughter, also wrote an open letter to the Supreme Leader:
"Please intervene and show that the velāyat-e fagih intends to stop dictatorship!"
She further claimed in the same letter that Khomeini believed that Rafsanjani
was the most qualified to become the Supreme Leader. 

 The Guardian Council’s disqualification of Ayatollah Rafsanjani, the man whose current responsibility as the Head of the Expediency Council is to determine what is right and what is wrong for the existing Islamic order, is an interesting paradox. Many commentators in Tehran and abroad have highlighted the fact that the Council’s daring move in effect questions the legitimacy of the system. Despite its autocratic system of governance, the Islamic Republic has also relied and depended on its legitimacy as a sovereign state.  Its leaders always emphasized the high participation in electoral process as the evidence of its popularity. They always boasted that they have found the solution to what the German philosopher Jürgen Habermas calls “motivational deficit” and the ambivalence of the electorate in liberal democracies. That there is a cultural and ideological connection between the masses and the state.

Now we have to wait and see this time how the Iranian electorate will respond to a presidential election in which for the first time since the revolution the big absent is a genuine competition.

PICTORIAL HISTORY

In an editorial during the anniversary of the revolution last February,
a columnist of a Tehran newspaper lamented that "with the disappearance of people in
these photographs, we might assume that in 1979, a  French officer brought Imam Khomeini back to Iran.

The story of the disappearance of Nikolai Yezhov,
the Director of NKVD under Stalin.

The case of missing Commissars!

On the right Khomeini and his missing companions: Qotbzadeh (Foreign Minister, executed in 1982),
Bani Sadr (the first president, in exile), Ayatollah Mahallati (joined the opposition early on after the revolution).
On the left: Khomeini, his son Ahmad, and his disciple Ayatollah Motahhari (assassinated by the opposition three months after the revolution).

How long before this opening closes?

Rafsanjani's exit! 

THE FEMININE CAPACITY OF "REJĀL"

The following is the translation of an oped that Masumeh Ebtekar wrote today
in Bahar newspaper. Ebtekar is a member of Tehran's City Council in charge of the city's
environmental affairs. She was also disqualified from running for a second term.
(see my earlier blog on the municipal elections). 

When the time comes for the presidential election, the issue of qualifications of the candidates becomes the center of attention. The possibility of a woman president is also one of those topics that once every four years is seriously debated. Particularly this year, this issue became more controversial with comments of Mr. Mohammad Yazdi, a member of the Guardian Council, who belittled women by comparing their nomination to “a stranger who was not allowed into the village but was asking for the direction to the village elder’s home.” That of course gave his critics a good excuse to highlight the significance of the topic.

The possibility of women’s presidency is now hinges on the interpretation of the term “rejāl,” which is the word used in Article 115 of the constitution as one of the conditions of presidency. The dual meaning of the word (in Arabic, meaning “men,” and in Farsi meaning “known personalities.”) has allowed this game to be played for more than three decades now.

Ms. Monireh Gorji who was a member of the Constitutional Assembly of Experts recalls: “In the Assembly we discussed this issue at length. At the end we chose the word ‘rejāl,’ which is a general term, meaning the one who has the experience and wisdom to run for the office. Otherwise, we could have chosen the word ‘mardān,’ which would have left no ambiguity in the masculine reference to presidency.”  Ayatollah Beheshti specifically emphasized that during the meetings of the Assembly that “we should not deny our society from the contributions of women.”

So far, the Guardian Council has refused to prohibit women from running for the office of presidency explicitly. Last February, the Council’s spokesperson clearly stated: “there is not constitutional obstacle for women’s nomination for presidency.” But now Mr. Yazdi argues that “the law does not allow women to be the president of the country … now everybody fancies to become the president, should we trust our country’s fate to those incapable hands?”

The fact is that Imam Khomeini spoke categorically against those who opposed women’s membership in the parliament and running for any office.  He insisted that, “women should participate in managing the affairs of the country.” In another occasion, he stated: “Iranian women have a greater role than men in our movement.” The Imam believed that the principle of honesty, consideration of the Divine justice, and service must be the only criteria for running for elected offices.

We should ask the jurists of the Council based on which Qur’anic reference they believe women cannot run for presidency? Have they not heard of the Qur’anic story of Sheba? Do they not know that the Qur’an calls Queen Sheba the symbol of resistance to oppression and the spread of justice on behalf of Prophet Solomon? Do they ever ask themselves for what reason the Qur’an highlights the wisdom and courage of a woman in the establishment of justice and peace? The examples of women leaders are plenty in the Qur’an, women who led in economic affairs, like Khadija (the Prophet’s wife), women who led resistance to oppression, like Zahra, and Zeinab, women who exemplified cultural leadership and the promotion of different schools of thinking, like Ma’sumah. It was because of her learnedness and her high intellectual caliber that we have the city of Qom and its seminary as the center of Shi‘i thought.

How could our men in the high offices ignore that they come from a lineage of strong women leaders? Our Prophet says: “Those who respect women are honorable, and those who belittle them are detestable.”   Could the Guardian Council interpret the law in the same way if women leaders such as Saint Ma’sumah were alive today?

RAFSANJANI AND MASHA’EI DISQUALIFIED

The Guardian Council announced that it will not provide reasons for its decision!

I was getting ready to write a post saying that the security and police movements in Tehran and other cities indicate that the Guardian Council is ready to disqualify Masha’ei and Rafsanjani. I was too late. The Council released the names of 8 qualified candidates at 10:30 pm local time. The rising star among these candidates is Said Jalili, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. I will say more about these candidates next time.

It seems like there are some general consensus that Said Jalili will emerge
as the front runner in the upcoming campaign.

Since yesterday, the security was tightened in Tehran and other big cities. Many of Ahmadinejad and Masha’ei supporters were arrested in small towns. The police closed the offices of the Organization of Reformist Youth first in Tehran and later in other cities across the country. Anti-riot police force was deployed in major squares in Tehran.

These anti-riot police bike riders became the most effective force in containing the
protests after the 2009 election.

The police is concerned about possible spontaneous rallies, similar to what happened after the last election in 2009, which gave rise to what became known as the Green Movement. It is unlikely that something similar to those massive protests will materialize now, but this time the security forces and prepared.

The Reformist Youth Organization was in the process of mobilizing people
for a massive participation in the election on behalf of Rafsanjani.

Khatami's meeting with the Reformist Youth at their headquarters in Tehran
The calligraphy on the wall: "I have not heard a more pleasant sound than the voice of Love."

Strategy meeting with the former president Khatami. 

This is not over, yet. The Supreme Leader might intervene in the process of vetting, but that also is unlikely. Now we need to wait and see which candidates would step aside in favor of others.

Rafsanjani is perhaps the most important living figure of the Iranian revolution. He has been the Speaker of the parliament, two times president, Chief of the Assembly of Experts, and is the Head of Expediency Council, the highest arbitration body in the Iranian political system. His disqualification in so many different ways questions the legitimacy of the regime’s past deeds. It is the end of an era: the revolution has finally devoured its last standing child.

We shall wait and see how Ahmadinejad and his supporters react to Masha’ei’s disqualification. We know for sure that a new president will take the office soon. We do not know where Ahmadinejad will be heading to after his term ends, exile, house arrest, private citizen, prison, opposition leader…? 

Front page of the government-sponosred paper Iran.
Ahmadinejad positioned himself as the main advocate of anti-corruption campaign
during his presidency. Here we see a lead story from 7 years ago about the head of a
smuggling and embezzlement ring. Now his opponents have distributed documents that
Mr. Masha'ei himself was supporting this man's operation.

Would Putin stick his neck out for Medvedev?

ESFANDIYAR

Esfandiyar Rahim-Masha'ei standing next to a portrait of the poet Ferdowsi.
Does he think he is the embodiment of Esfandiyar, Ferdowsi's legendary hero?

 Mr. Masha’ei, Ahmadinejad’s Medvedev, poses a grave dilemma for the Guardian Council. The Supreme Leader has openly spoken against him in the past, as an untrustworthy politician with dangerous ideas. He called on Ahmadinejad to strip him from all his official positions (he held many) particularly as his chief of staff. The President held his ground and refused to turn his back on his old friend. Esfandiyar Rahim-Masha’ei, he confided in his friends, is not a “willow that would tremble with a simple breeze.” But if they disqualify him from running in the next presidential election, they risk an unpredictable reaction from Ahmadinejad who seems determined to champion Masha’ei as his successor.

Ayatollah Jannati, the Head of the Guardian council
trying to make sense of the Supreme Leader's advice!

In his Shahnameh, the epic book of kings, composed between 977-1010 AD, the Persian poet Ferdowsi invests much of the power of his heroic poetry to describe the resilience and invincibility of Esfandiyar. In the Shahnameh, Esfandiyar signifies hope, loyalty, determination, and submission. He devotes his entire life to the King, his father, and despite his own suspicions about the King’s cunning and devious intentions remains faithful to the throne until his death.

A miniature depicting the battle of Rostam and Esfandiyar.
Here you can see the double-headed arrow in his eyes!

  

Statue of Esfandiyar in Ramsar, a Caspian Sea region town.

 Esfandiyar wins seven battles and at the behest of his father spreads the message of Zarathustra in the land of Persia. Before every mission, the King promises the throne to Esfandiyar upon his successful return. But every time, he hedges and refuses to abdicate in favor of his own son. Although the court’s foretellers have warned the King that Esfandiyar will eventually be killed by Rostam, he decides to send his son to bring the Persian national hero to him in chains. Esfandiyar accepts the mission only reluctantly for the admiration he had for Rostam whose legend gave meaning to the unity of the nation. Rostam is old and vulnerable, Esfandiyar is young and unconquerable. Rostam is wounded in the battle but learns that Esfandiyar’s eyes are his Achilles Hill, so to speak. He makes a double-headed arrow from the wood of tamarisk tree.  Esfandiyar is slain by Rostam’s shot through the eyes.

May 16 was the national day of Ferdowsi (yes in Iran there are national days for poets).
Ahmadinejad invited people to join him at the Azadi arena for a celebration of Ferdowsi's poetry.
Only a few hundred attended, even the orchestra was absent.
Ahmadinejad saved face and did not appear!

Masha’ei is keen to present himself as a modern day Esfandiyar, minus the shot through the eyes. Although his eyes, Ahmadinejad, remain vulnerable, he wants to change the ending of the story, make the King content, capture Rostam, and spoil his dream of becoming the national hero, an the savior of the nation. This week the foretellers of the court, the Guardian Council, need to make a prediction. Should they allow Esfandiyar to run for the battle of election? Should they ask the King to strike a deal with him? Should they allow Rostam to rise from his old age and remind the King and the nation of his political touch of Midas?

Scene from a recent musical adaptation of "Rostam and Esfandiyar" in Tehran.

DEMYSTIFYING THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION IN IRAN

686 people nominated themselves as candidates for the next presidential election in Iran.   The obvious question is how could an election be organized with hundreds of candidates running for a single office? The answer is that there won’t be an election with more than 600 candidates. In a day or two, the Guardian Council will announce the names of a few, perhaps 5 or 6, final candidates who are qualified to run for the office of the president.

The role of the Guardian Council is one of the most controversial topics in the Iranian electoral politics. For the most part, the constitution envisioned a role very similar to the Supreme Court for the Guardian Council: To ensure the constitutionality of the laws and regulations and the compatibility of those laws with the teachings of Islam. On both fronts, the Council had a troubled beginning. Its members proved that they could hardly agree on any issues. Neither could they agree on what counts as being “Islamic,” nor could they show their competence in interpreting the constitution.

During Ayatollah Khomeini’s tenure as the Supreme Leader, in most cases, he disagreed with the Council’s interpretations and sided with the Parliament (majils) on legislative issues.

The Council is composed of 12 members, six experts of Islamic jurisprudence are appointed by the Supreme Leader and the majlis selects the remaining six from a list of jurists that is prepared by the Head of the Judiciary.
Historically, the Council has represented the conservative elements of the polity with a more dogmatic/literal readings of Islamic jurisprudence.

In 1992, and here is the controversy, the Council introduced a broad interpretation of its supervisory role in the elections of the majlis, the Assembly of the Experts, and the president. While the constitution does charge the Council with supervising the elections, the meaning of this supervision has been a point of serious contention between different political factions. The Council claims that its supervisory role is “approbatory,” (نظارت استصوابی) meaning that it will decide whether a candidate is qualified to run for an office or not. In most cases, the Council has tried to use its authority to disqualify candidates with whose political views it disagrees. In this case, these were mostly reformist candidates for the majlis or presidency. Others, generally from the reformist tendencies, argue that the constitution has given the Council the authority only for “evidentiary”(نظارت استنادی) or “notification” (نظارت استطلاعی) supervision. That means that the Council may not disqualify any candidate based on his (or her) political views.

The 87-year old Ayatollah Jannati is the Head of the Council
and the most vociferous advocate of the approbation supervision.

Yesterday, Akbar A’lami, a presidential candidate, said that the Council should not insist on its wisdom on vetting the presidential candidates. They cannot stand behind their own record. Bani Sadr, the first president of the republic, was impeached and is now in exile in Paris. They chair of the Council, Ayatollah Janati, calls Hashemi-Rafsanjani, the third president, one of the leaders of the sedition. The Council believes that Mohammad Khatami, the former president, was a disgrace to the republic. Ahmadinejad now is considered to be the head of deviant faction in power. Not particularly a record to be proud of.

This week, the Guardian Council will announce who will be allowed to run for the election. In Tehran a contentious guessing game is under way. We try to stay clear of speculation here.

Next time, I will try to lay out the complex landscape of political factions in Iran.

The Boisterous Presidential VS. The Quiet Municipal Elections

Most newspapers in Tehran dedicated their main headlines to Ahmadinejad's violation of the election law. That was predictable, since he does not have many supporters in the Iranian mass media these days. 150 members of the majlis signed a petition asking for a vote of no confidence against the president for his repeated violations of the law. 

Front page of Bahar (Spring) newspaper in Tehran: a pictorial conviction!

 But today I would like to talk about another important electoral event that might not get much press during the next few weeks. The 4^th elections for town and country municipal councils will be held on the same day as the presidential elections. While all the cameras were focused on the colorful presidential candidates and the elaborate fanfare at the Ministry of Interior, hundreds of nominees for the municipal councils were disqualified throughout the country. Most of those whose disqualification was announced yesterday belong to the reformist camps. These include sitting council members, former council members and state officials and ministers. In almost all cases the disqualifications were justified by a reference to section “J” and “D” of article 26 of the election law that requires the candidates to be “committed to the constitution of the Islamic Republic.” As one of the disqualified candidates put it in an interview with Sharq newspaper yesterday, “quietly, they want to eliminate competition from the Councils election.”

The Councils were the brainchild of Ayatollah Taleqani. With his insistence, it was included in the Republic’s constitution as a way of decentralization of state power. He interpreted the famous Qur’anic verse (42:38): amruhum shura baynahum (run your affairs based on consultation) as the Islamic decree for democratic decision-making and a foundation for decentralization of state power. He believed that powerful councils will strengthen civil society and will contain state power. Taleqani died soon after the revolution and with him was buried the implementation of municipal councils power. Until, in 1998, after his first year in the office, as part of his reform agenda, President Khatami realized Taleqani’s dream.

Following the phenomenal 80% participation in the presidential election, the first municipal elections drew close to 70% of the electorates to the polls for 3,300 councils throughout the country. The reformists won the absolute majority in almost all the councils throughout the country.

The second Councils’ election drew a telling picture of its failure.  With an overall participation of 45%, only 11% of Tehran residents and 15% of other big cities cast their ballots.  The important distinctions defined the second council elections in 2003.  It attracted the lowest number of the electorates to the polls, but paradoxically, it was the only postrevolutionary elections in which not a single candidate was disqualified from the running.  It constituted the freest election with the lowest rate of participation.

The winner of the second council elections was a new breed of conservatives. They won the majority of the seats in major cities, including in Tehran, with only 5% of the total electorates’ vote.  They believed, in order to steer away the instruments of power from the reformists, they needed to mobilize a bottom-up campaign, running on a distributive justice agenda.  The Tehran City Council elected an obscure character, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Mayor.  Two years later he won the presidential election in a landslide against the politician par excellence of the Republic, Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The third election of the councils offered another surprise.  While this time, the candidates were massively disqualified, the participation jumped from a nationwide of 45 to 60%, with major cities still lagging far behind of small towns and rural areas.  The final tally indicated (233,000 candidates ran) that the reformists capture 40%, the independents and all shades of the conservatives each took 30% of all seats.

Two points are noteworthy in the Councils’ elections: first the high percentage of participation in small towns and rural areas, and second, the impressive success of women in running and being elected. More than 5,000 women were elected to the municipal councils.  In Shiraz, Arak, Hamedan, Zanjan, and Ardebil a woman candidate received the highest number of votes.  In Urumiyeh, women candidates won the first, second, and third seats, in Qazvin first, second, third, and fifth seats.

A beauty products saleswoman, Arezu Babadi, an independent in Ahvaz,
came in second after a reformist candidate.  As you can see, without any ambiguity,
her posters showed that she was determined to bring another color to the Council politics.

While the majority of women ran on reformist tickets, a significant number also ran independently.  Speaking to the reporters after her victory, Mehrnoush Najafi of Hamedan attributed her success to her work in mosques to gain peoples’ trust and to know their pressing concerns. Sadly, a few months ago she had to resign after her hijab-less facebook pictures were posted on many website. The conservative members of the Hamedan Council asked for her resignation because her "nude" pictures had brought disgrace to the city!

More than 300,000 have nominated themselves for the 4^th Councils’ election. Although only 12,000 of these candidates are women, an increase of more than 70% from the last elections, given their previous records, they are in good position to win a good number of seats, particularly in small towns. This time also there seems to be a significant consciousness about the contribution of women to a civil politics. 

E'temad newspaper ran a full page analysis of the sharp increase in women's participation.
No, this is not the line for Macy's latest White Flower sale, women in Isfahan waiting to
register their candidacy for the city's council.

Dr. Shahla Kazemipour is a demographer, specializing in women's  mobility. She argues that
the surge in women's political participation is directly linked to their increasing rate of higher  education.
60% of university students in Iran are women. 

As I said earlier, there is a distinction this time that women are speaking more and more explicitly about their participation as women. They emphasize that women could introduce a different kind of politics at least at the municipal level.

Halimeh Aali, a physician who represents Zabol district of Sistan and Baluchistan in the Parliament.
She is the first woman elected from the region in the legislative branch.
Many people in Iran talk about the "Halimeh effect". 

In an editorial yesterday, she declares that: "Wherever there are women, there is peace and tranquility!"

Sakineh Omrani, representative of the small town of Samirom in central Iran, also is a vocal proponent of
women's political participation. In another op-ed yesterday, she insisted that:
"We need to institutionalize women's successful experience in political participation!"

Here are numbers of women candidates in the 4th Council's election.
The astonishing fact is the high numbers of participation in regional states.
In Kerman 1095 women have registeered, Fars 921, Gilan 777, Isfahan 713, Khorasan 592,
Sistan and Baluchistan 584, Khuzestan 550.

I also want to show you how enthusiastic small remote districts are about the Council's election. 

Click on Shushtar and see how the candidates publicize their campaign.

You can monitor the election in Evaz, a town with 22000 population in central Iran.

Here is the website for the village of Fashkour near the city of Chalous in Caspian Sea region.
You will enjoy some nice music there, too. Make sure that you will cast your vote
 if you happen to be in Fashkour next month.

And last but not least, my American friends who would remember Sister Mary during the hostage crisis of 1979 should know that she was disqualified from running for her second term in Tehran City Council.

The young Masumeh Ebtekar (Mary for Americans). She was the spokeswoman for the students
who took over the American Embassy in Tehran.

She went on to become a vocal environmentalist and served under President Khatami as his
environmental advisor. Here she is sitting next to Ahmadinejad's sister in a city council meeting in Tehran.

In Tehran the number of candidates reached 1950. As of yesterday, 203 of them were disqualified.

Next time, I will explain the role of the Guardian Council in the election and why many in Iran believe that they act unconstitutionally in the process of vetting the candidates.

        behrooz ghamari