The Purchase and Sale of City Council Seats

In addition to the presidential race, another series of elections are on their way in Iran: elections to city and village councils. There are currently some 207,000 candidates competing for the 193 city councils seats and 118,960 candidates for the village councils. Of these, 31 candidates will get into Tehran’s city council. But what is bizarre, or perhaps not so, is that there are more than 80 lists of candidates for these seats today. Some of the candidates have revealed the exchange of millions of Toman for them to be put on some of the circulating lists.

Coalitions for Sale

“Till now, there are some 60 lists of candidates that have been published with some questionable names on them and my name along with some others I know are on lists that we know nothing about and whether being on them has any benefit or interest for us.” These are the words of Mehdi Chamran, a current member of Tehran’s city council. He supports even more lists while expressing his concern that the numerous lists will create confusion to the voters.

At one time, he and his ideologue friends held the majority on the Abadgaran list in Tehran’s second and third councils. “In 2006 we had a single unified list and the names on that list got into the council because none of the groups wanted to risk getting into the council. They did not provide any assistance to us either,” he explained.

But while the lists may create some confusion, they also create hype for the voters, he said. It did not seem to matter to him that almost all prominent reformist names had been disqualified from running on charges of supporting the 2009 election protests.

But some of the candidates have raised their voices and criticism regarding the sale of names to be put on these coalition lists. Tasnim news agency quotes two city council candidates, without providing their names, that one of them was offered 30 million Toman to be placed on a list while the other between 10 to 50 million Toman, which he turned down to remain an independent candidate.

Vahid Nowruzi is a candidate who has openly talked about the spread of the sale of seats on these lists. “Selling of lists is a major activity in this election and the capability and skills of the candidates come third or fourth in importance while the lists are created on the basis of how much money they bring,” he said.

Mohammad Haghani, a former deputy at Tehran municipality who is also a candidate for the upcoming term has said, “The big problem that exists in city elections is that there are too many candidates. Because of this there is a tsunami on presenting candidate lists, something that has turned into a business for some. But how much does a person earn by attending council sessions to be able to pay billions to get into the council? Some candidates get calls from dealers who offer to put them on top of a list for a fee.”

Reformists With One or Two Lists?

Most reformers have not been qualified to run in the city council. Their efforts managed to get just a few moderate individuals in.

In the absence of Masumeh Ebtekar, Mohsen Hashemi, Fateme Rakei, Mahmud Alizadeh Tabatabai and a number of other prominent faces, a “coalition of reformers” has been created lead by Ahmad Masjed Jamei. This list includes not-so-familiar names with some semblance of reformism.

While Mohsen Rahami, the head of the coordination council for the reformers front believes that this is the only list of reformers, but the absence of Ibrahim Asgharzadeh, a well-known face on Tehran’s first council a few years ago resulted in the creation of a “large coalition of reformists.” This list is not final yet but it does contain some prominent names such as Ali-Reza Safarian and Gholamreza Saninejad.

While Isfandiar Mashai did not make it to the presidential race, many expected their candidates to make it to the council elections. There is a group that has entered this race with the slogan of “Long Live Spring” which is the trademark that Ahmadinejad and Mashai had been spreading earlier. Their list was created after the group formed a coalition with a pro-Ahmadinejad group and they carry Mashai and Ahmadinejad’s portraits in their campaigns.

In their first news conference, one candidate Dawood Nezamabad called for mobile showers to be set up for Friday prayer participants at prayer sites.