Iranian local elections, 2006

Iranian City and Village Islamic Councils elections, 2006
Iran
December 15, 2006 (2006-12-15)
Alliance Principlists Reformists
Seats (Province Capital Cities)[1][2] 145 (Fars)
188 (IRNA)
75 (Fars)
41 (IRNA)
Percentage of Seats (Province Capital Cities) 54.3% (Fars)
80.7% (IRNA)
28.1% (Fars)
17.6% (IRNA)

The Iranian City and Village Councils election of 2006 took place on December 15, 2006. People elected representatives for City and Village Councils, who in their turn elected the mayors.

The elections happened on the same day as the election for the Assembly of Experts.

Candidates

Every city and village in the country elected representatives. Iran's 46.5 million eligible voters elected about 233,000 candidates for more than 113,000 city and rural council posts.[3]

Tehran's candidates, as the largest city in the country and the capital, included more famous candidates. These included former politicians Mohammad Ali Najafi (former Vice President under Mohammad Khatami and Minister of Education under Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani), Ahmad Masjed-Jamei (former Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance under Khatami), Masoumeh Ebtekar (former Vice President under Khatami and spokeswoman of Iranian students in Iran hostage crisis); sportsmen Hadi Saei (Taekwondo athlete and gold medalist in 2004 Summer Olympics), Rasoul Khadem (wrestler and gold medalist in 1996 Summer Olympics) and Alireza Dabir (wrestler and gold medalist in 2000 Summer Olympics); and even Parvin Ahmadinejad, sister of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Also notable is that the reformist parties reached a consensus to have a unified list of candidates for the election, contrary to the previous election where every reformist party had a separate list, some not even sharing a single candidate.

Voting results

Tehran

A general tabulation of all of the elections in various cities and villages is not available, but the results for Tehran City Council may be taken as broadly representative. Of 1,656,558 votes counted by 2006-12-21, the official results gave the following as the first fifteen candidates (that would be elected):[4]

Name Electoral lists Votes %
FLIL[lower-alpha 1] GCP[lower-alpha 2] PSS[lower-alpha 3] R[lower-alpha 4]
1 Mehdi Chamran YesYes 603,766 36.45%
2 Morteza Talaie YesYes 539,761 32.58%
3 Rasoul Khadem Yes 427,097 25.78%
4 Abbas Sheibani YesYes 394,457 23.81%
5 Hadi Saei Yes 384,358 23.20%
6 Hamzeh Shakib YesYesYes 330,233 19.93%
7 Alireza Dabir[lower-alpha 5] 306,729 18.52%
8 Parvin Ahmadinejad Yes 242,501 14.64%
9 Masoumeh Ebtekar Yes 232,959 14.06%
10 Ahmad Masjed-Jamei Yes 216,015 13.04%
11 Mohammad Ali Najafi Yes 202,700 12.24%
12 Masoume Abad YesYes201,754 12.18%
13 Hassan Bayadi Yes200,397 12.10%
14 Khosrow Daneshjoo YesYes200,175 12.08%
15 Habib Kashani Yes197,284 11.91%
Notes
  1. The "Unifying Principlists" was a principlist list made by Front of Followers of the Line of the Imam and the Leader, having 5 exclusive candidates, and endrosing 5 candidates from each of GCP and PSS lists.
  2. The "Grand Coalition of Pincipalists" was a principlist list of supporters of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
  3. The "Coalition of the Pleasant Scent of Servitude" was a principlist list of supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
  4. The "Reformists Coalition: Friends of Khatami" was the single Reformist list. National Trust Party also endrosed the list.
  5. Dabir run as an independent, after the election he became a supporter of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
Sources

These fifteen candidates were later confirmed elected as the Tehran City councillors. [5]

Other cities

Partial results about other cities indicate:[6]

Controversy about the results

The reformist candidates protested Ministry of Interior delays in announcing provisional results, and its failure to announce provisional results for two days after the end of the election. This contravened normal practice, where results were announced gradually as vote counting was under way. The candidates also claimed fraud in counting the votes, mentioning lost vote boxes[7] and newly found boxes that reported zero votes for the reformist candidates.[8]

References

External links

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