2017 Tehran City Council election
An election to the Islamic City Council of Tehran took place on 19 May 2017, along with the local elections nationwide.
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21 City Council seats 11 seats needed for a majority | ||||||||||||||||
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The council is elected by the plurality-at-large voting system. This election saw losses for the Principlists and the Reformists gained all 21 seats.
More than 3.6 million voters turned out in the election, setting a record.[1]
Campaign
In January 2017, reformists started working with moderates and supporters of Hassan Rouhani to compile a shared electoral list of candidates for City Council of Tehran.[2] In April 2017, the Moderation and Development Party joined the Reformists' Supreme Council for Policymaking,[3] the body responsible for picking the candidates included in the list.[4] The final list under the brand name The List of Hope, drawn criticism from reformists[4] but was eventually endorsed by Mohammad Khatami. It included only 2 out of the 13 incumbent reformist councilors[5] and several well-known reformist figures were not included. Some reform-minded non-partisans were also expected to feature in the list, including whistleblower Yashar Soltani, social activists Leila Arshad and Ameneh Shirafkan, and Taraneh Yalda, a cityplanner.[6][7] As a result, two other lists emerged: Omīd-e Eṣlāḥāṭ (Persian: امید اصلاحات, lit. 'Reforms' Hope'), partially made up of the incumbent reformist councilors and Šaḥr-e Dīgar (Persian: شهر دیگر, lit. 'Alternative City') by independent activists.[8]
The conservative camp and its newly established umbrella organization Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces that supported the incumbent mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, unanimously endorsed the list published under the name Ḵedmaṭ (Persian: خدمت, lit. 'Service').[4][9]
Several candidates who were initially approved, including former Islamic Iran Participation Front MP Ali Tajernia, Office for Strengthening Unity activist Abdollah Momeni and Emad Behavar of the Freedom Movement of Iran among others, were declared disqualified after Revolutionary Guards Intelligence agency reportedly forced the Central Election Supervisory Board.[10]
Results
| # | Candidate | List | Votes[11] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ↓ 21 Sitting Members ↓ | ||||
| 1 | Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani | Hope | 1,756,086 | |
| 2 | Morteza Alviri | Hope | 1,411,068 | |
| 3 | Ahmad Masjed-Jamei (i) | Hope | 1,405,994 | |
| 4 | Shahrbanoo Amani | Hope | 1,296,657 | |
| 5 | Mohammad-Javad Haghshenas | Hope | 1,288,611 | |
| 6 | Bahareh Arvin | Hope | 1,285,237 | |
| 7 | Ebrahim Amini | Hope | 1,265,868 | |
| 8 | Afshin Habibzadeh | Hope | 1,232,947 | |
| 9 | Arash Milani | Hope | 1,230,722 | |
| 10 | Hassan Khalilabadi | Hope | 1,228,477 | |
| 11 | Ali A'ta | Hope | 1,216,209 | |
| 12 | Zahra Nouri | Hope | 1,206,159 | |
| 13 | Mohammad Salari (i) | Hope | 1,188,874 | |
| 14 | Hassan Rasouli | Hope | 1,186,602 | |
| 15 | Nahid Khodakarami | Hope | 1,172,782 | |
| 16 | Majid Farahani | Hope | 1,171,609 | |
| 17 | Zahra Nejadbahram | Hope | 1,133,048 | |
| 18 | Mahmoud Mirlohi | Hope | 1,121,237 | |
| 19 | Elham Fakhari | Hope | 1,112,126 | |
| 20 | Mohammad Alikhani | Hope | 1,070,025 | |
| 21 | Bashir Nazari | Hope | 1,066,813 | |
| ↓ 11 Alternate Members ↓ | ||||
| 22 | Mehdi Chamran (i) | Service | 656,136 | |
| 23 | Alireza Dabir (i) | Service | 528,603 | |
| 24 | Habib Kashani (i) | Service | 473,488 | |
| 25 | Morteza Talaie (i) | Service | 468,428 | |
| 26 | Jalal Maleki | Service | 455,286 | |
| 27 | Elaheh Rastgou (i) | Service | 444,635 | |
| 28 | Mohsen Pirhadi (i) | Service | 442,233 | |
| 29 | Parviz Sorouri (i) | Service | 407,269 | |
| 30 | Eghbal Shakeri (i) | Service | 381,183 | |
| 31 | Zohreh Lajevardi | Service | 368,748 | |
| 32 | Reza Taghipour (i) | Service | 368,683 | |
| ↓ Lost candidates ↓ | ||||
| 33 | Mojtaba Shakeri (i) | Service | 365,767 | |
| 34 | Gholamreza Ghasemian | Service | 364,081 | |
| 35 | Hadi Zakeri | Service | 363,041 | |
| 36 | Hamzeh Shakib | Service | 352,103 | |
| 37 | Abdolmoghim Nassehi (i) | Service | 349,833 | |
| 38 | Ali Riaz | Service | 346,382 | |
| 39 | Mehdi Eghrarian | Service | 339,740 | |
| 40 | Soudeh Najafi | Service | 339,248 | |
| 41 | Abolfazl Ghana'ati (i) | Service | 337,872 | |
| 42 | Babak Negaahdari | Service | 317,966 | |
| 43 | Yashar Soltani | Alternative City | 256,424 | |
| 44 | Hossein Raghfar | Alternative City | 131,207 | |
| 45 | Mohammad-Mehdi Tondgouyan (i) | Reforms' Hope | 128,604 | |
| 46 | Mohsen Sorkhou (i) | Reforms' Hope | 109,167 | |
| 47 | Esmaeil Dousti (i) | Reforms' Hope | 92,711 | |
| 48 | Ahmad Hakimipour (i) | Reforms' Hope | 91,024 | |
| 49 | Mohammad-Ali Zam | Reforms' Hope | 79,154 | |
| 50 | Hadi Saei (i) | N/A | 66,446 | |
| 51 | Alireza Alikhani | N/A | 57,267 | |
| 52 | Abbas Jadidi (i) | N/A | 56,395 | |
| 53 | Fatemeh Daneshvar (i) | Reforms' Hope | 51,400 | |
| 54 | Ahmad Donyamali (i) | N/A | 45,737 | |
| 55 | Hossein Allahkaram | N/A | 37,279 | |
| 56 | Meysam Mozaffar | N/A | 36,981 | |
| 57 | Ameneh Shirafkan | Alternative City | 33,739 | |
| 58 | Khosro Salehi | Alternative City | 32,975 | |
| 59 | Hossein Rezazadeh (i) | N/A | 32,743 | |
| 60 | Touraj Farhadi | N/A | 28,775 | |
| 61 | Taraneh Yalda | N/A | 24,528 | |
| 62 | Rasoul Jama'ati | N/A | 24,047 | |
| 2249 other candidates | <20,000 | |||
References
- "Pro-reform candidates capture all council seats in Tehran", Tehran Times, 22 May 2017, retrieved 14 August 2017
- "'Moderates, reformists to agree on common list for council elections'", Tehran Times, 4 January 2017, retrieved 14 January 2017
- "Moderation party joins reformist policy-making council", Tehran Times, 10 April 2017, retrieved 14 April 2017
- "Aref Defends Tehran City Council List of Candidates", Financial Tribune, 13 May 2017, retrieved 14 May 2017
- Aida Ghajar (24 May 2017), "Reformists Turn the Tide in Tehran", Iran Wire, retrieved 24 May 2017
- Ramin Mostaghim; Shashank Bengali (9 May 2017), "Pedestrian walkways, bike lanes, green spaces: An unusual election platform for a politician in Iran", Los Angeles Times, retrieved 1 June 2017
- "Iran's Other Elections: Local Council Applicants Subjected to Arbitrary Vetting", Center for Human Rights in Iran, 27 April 2017, retrieved 14 May 2017
- Niusha Saremi (17 May 2017), "اصلاحطلبان و بحرانی به نام لیست واحد برای انتخابات شورای شهر", BBC Persian (in Persian), retrieved 17 May 2017
- "Vetting bodies verify results of city council election in Tehran", Islamic Republic News Agency, 28 May 2017, retrieved 28 May 2017
- "Interference in Local Elections: Approved Candidates Now Disqualified", Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 12 May 2017, retrieved 1 June 2017
- آگهی نتیجه انتخابات پنجمين دوره شورای اسلامی شهر تهران (PDF) (in Persian), Ministry of Interior, 21 May 2017, retrieved 22 May 2017