Iran election countdown

There are less than three weeks to Iran’s presidential elections and the Guardian Council has already announced the qualified candidates for presidential and city and village councils elections.

While there are less than three weeks to Iran’s 12 presidential elections, 6 candidates could survive the accurate vetting process of the Guardian Councils. Mohammad-BaqerQalibaf, Mostafa Hashemi-Taba, Es'haqJahangiri, Mostafa Mirsalim,EbrahimRaeisi and Hassan Rouhani are the qualified ones who have started their campaign and allowed to define their plans and garner votes until May 18th. Iranian media, radio and television have given the hopefuls an equal opportunity to give speeches and attend debates.

The City and village councils’ electionsare held simultaneously on the same day of the presidential election. In Iran, there are over 39 thousand seats for all city and village councils. Here is an interesting insight: Since the parliament is responsible for vetting these candidates, and reformists and moderates currently hold a lot of seats in the parliament, in this round, the possibility for reformist candidates to be qualified is much higher.

On May 21 Iranians go to the polls to cast their votes for their 12th president. The Guardian Council has already finished the vetting process of the candidates and announced 6 names.  As Iran’s leader has emphasized earlier, it seems that the country’s main problem regards economic situation and unemployment rate.

Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, the current mayor of the city of Tehran, Mostafa Hashemi-Tabawho served as Iran's minister of industries and was also a former presidential candidate in 2001, Es'haqJahangiri, the current vice president, Mostafa Mirsalimwho has served as the minister of culture and Islamic guidance in Hameshemi Rafsanjani’s administration,EbrahimRaeisi, who is the leading candidate for the Principlists and currently the custodian of Astan Quds Razavi and Hassan Rouhani who is the current President of the country.

Rouhani andRaisi are expected to focus their campaigns on the state of the economy as well as the nuclear deal, which has been hailed by the president as his most significant success over the four years he has been in office. The City and village council election is held simultaneously. The city and village councils were created as one of the government organizations to cooperate with cities' municipalities.

This will be the 5th round of city and village council elections. Now, in addition to city and village councils and with the main purpose of assisting them, local institutes were formed called “Shora-Yari” or “councils' assistance”. Majority of these institutes are located in Tehran within different neighborhoods. These institutes are responsible to jump in when the councils are in need of help. Today, over 15 million people live in Tehran and its metropolitan area.

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