Heavy Defeat for the Islamic Coalition

As the results of the runoff elections for the ninth Majlis were announced in Iran, it became clear that the Hezbe Motalefe Islami (Islamic Coalition Party), the oldest traditional right-wing political group in the country, had suffered a heavy defeat. From amongst the secretary general and six other senior leaders of the party who ran in the race, only two succeeded in winning seats in the incoming parliament, and both were women.

The first woman, Fateme Rahbar won a set from Tehran with 327,958 votes. She had joined the central council of the Islamic Coalition in 1998. She founded the women’s wing of the party in 1996.  In her latest bid she was supported by the conservative United Front of the Principlists, in addition to the Islamic Coalition party. The other woman candidate who won a set is Laleh Efetkhari.

Among those that did not make it were the secretary general of the party Mohammad-Nabi Habibi and his deputy Assadollah Badamchian. Habibi got 215,865 votes in the first round of voting, ranking him in the 39^th position. He did worst in the runoff and was placed 46^th.

Badamchian won 256,220 seats in the first round, placing him in the 33th position, but fared worse in the runoff vote and being placed in the 37 position. This is his second defeat, the first one when he ran for the sixth Majlis. After the first election round, the deputy secretary general of the Islamic Coalition had predicted his final defeat and had said, “I am so busy that I do not follow the number of votes.” But he had also promised his victory to a reporter from Etemad newspaper after the first round and had cautioned, “Be patient.” But when asked why he ran if he was not interested in the race, he had replied, “Because of religious duty. I do not seek to be a representative. What use does it have for me? The position does not make me more important and I do not receive any money for it.”

Hassan Ghafoorifard, another veteran Islamic Coalition member did even worse. Having failed to be supported by the conservative grouping United Front of the Principlists, he won the support of the Sedaye Mellat, but failed to win. He was a member of the presiding board of the outgoing eight Majlis and has been a cabinet member in several administrations, including that of reformist Mohammad Khatami when he was a minister of state.

Javad Arinmanesh, the representative from Mashhad and Ali Abbaspour Tehranifar, representative from Tehran in the outgoing eight Majlis, also both veteran members of the central council of the Islamic Coalition and active parliamentarians, also failed to get into the ninth Majlis.

But despite these setbacks, Hamidreza Taraghi, another central council member who did not run himself, says that 40 party members succeeded in winning seats in the ninth Majlis. Speaking with Hamshahri Online newspaper, Taraghi said “The main goal of the Islamic Coalition was for the principlists to win in the elections because whether our candidates won or not did not make a difference in our views of the principlists.” Comparing the Coalition’s positions in the eighth and ninth Majlises, Taraghi said that they initially had only 20 members in the beginning of the eighth Majlis, while this increased to 70 by the end of its 4 year term. There are more than 40 members of the Coalition that have won seats in the incoming ninth Majlis, which when compared to the beginning of the eighth Majlis shows a two-fold increase.”

Victory of the United Front is a Victory for the Coalition

In a separate interview also with Etemad newspaper, the head of the party Badamchian presented the same argument and said, “We are members of the United Front of the Principlists and have worked together. Sometimes this group (the Coalition) gets votes and at others it does not.

Hamshahri Online site also mentioned the failure of the Islamic Coalition in the elections and wrote, “The secretary general of a grouping that has a record of 45 years of activity and which can be called the oldest remaining political group in the country, failed to win sufficient seats in the incoming ninth Majlis from Tehran.” The head of the political section of the Islamic Coalition party had told the same site, “That the secretary general of the party did not get sufficient votes in the elections for the ninth Majlis did not mean a defeat of the party.”