Puneet Varma (Editor)

Iranian local elections, 2006

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December 15, 2006 (2006-12-15)
  
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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.

Contents

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.

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.

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):

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

Other cities

Partial results about other cities indicate:

  • In Isfahan, Ahmadinejad's supporters won 3 out of 11 seats
  • In Tabriz, Ahmadinejad's supporters won 4 out of 16 seats
  • In Qom, Ahmadinejad's supporters won 3 out of 9 seats
  • In Shiraz, Ahmadinejad's supporters won 1 out of 11 seats
  • In Ardabil, Ahmadinejad's supporters won 1 out of 9 seats
  • 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 and newly found boxes that reported zero votes for the reformist candidates.

    References

    Iranian local elections, 2006 Wikipedia