April 21, 2017
In a special election to fill a vacant sear in the Majlis, the Council of Guardians has disqualified three Reformist candidates it qualified last year and qualified two Principleist candidates it disqualified last year.
The Council gave no explanation for its quintuple reversal of its own decisions of one year ago.
The seat became vacant last year when the Council of Guardians disqualified a Reformist woman, Minoo Khaleghi, after she had won the February 2016 election for one of the three Majlis seats in Esfahan. That belated disqualification became one of the major post-election controversies.
The special election to fill the seat she won will be held at the same time as the presidential election, May 19. The Council of Guardians has now announced the approved list of candidates for that special election.
Last year, Reformist politicians Kourosh Mohammadi, Masud Hamidi and Alireza Ajoudani were approved and ran for the Majlis seats from Esfahan. But the daily Iran reported last week, “Now, Ajoudani, Moham-madi and Hamidi have all been disqualified” from running in next month’s special election.
On the other hand, Principleist politicians Hamid Rasaie and Arsalan Fathipour were disqualified in 2016, but have been approved to run in this year’s special election, it reported.
The Guardian Council did not explain why it reversed its decisions on five candidates after just one year.
Nor did the Guardian Council ever explain why it disqualified Khaleghi after she won the election. But news reports said the Council had belatedly received photographs showing her shaking hands with a male while on a trip abroad.
An unnamed relative was quoted as saying the Guardian Council was handed “personal and private photos that could only have been obtained by hacking her phone.”
“There has been every kind of rumor and immoral talk surrounding me,” said Khaleghi in a March 23, 2016, statement. “These actions are all aimed at questioning my reputation as a Muslim and, as such, are punishable according to Sharia law.”