Move to mobilize reformists for next Majlis elections; Aref
Head of Reformist Policymaking Council Mohammad Reza Aref said the council welcomes any suggestions that would help boost the performance of the camp in the next parliamentary elections in 2020.
“Please send your suggestions by September,” Aref told a pro-reform gathering in Tehran at the weekend.
A coalition of reformists and moderates had a strong showing against conservatives in the last Majlis election in February 2016 and also a concurrent vote of the Assembly of Experts, a powerful clerical body that selects the Leader of Islamic Revolution and supervises his work.
They swept all the 30 seats exclusive to Tehran in the 290-member parliament and 15 out of the 16 seats for the assembly, which has 88 members. A 21-strong list of candidates fielded by the coalition for the Tehran City Council polls earlier this month under the name “List of Hope” also grabbed all the seats in the council.
But the policymaking body has faced internal criticism over the way it selected the people for the council slate.
Some pro-coalition factions broke ranks with the reformist decision-making body and released their own lists of hopefuls.
“Several fake lists were released under the name of Hope. We should be thankful to the people for demonstrating a keen understanding by choosing the real list of reformists,” ISNA quoted Aref as saying.
The city council vote is overseen by a special parliamentary board, while all other elections are supervised by the Guardian Council. Overall, there are 39,575 council seats in 1,245 cities, 1,057 counties and 2,589 villages. City councils in Iran, known as local governments in other countries, are responsible for appointing the mayor, supervising his performance and approving the municipality budget.
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