18% of Majles candidates were women

In last Friday’s elections, 45 million Iranians were qualified to vote, 1.3 million for the first time. However, more than a third of the registered candidates were disqualified by the Guardian Council beforehand

Shahrzadnews:18% of the 3444 hopefuls who took part in Iran’s recent parliamentary election were women. The Majles (parliament) has 290 deputies, elected every four years.

In last Friday’s elections, 45 million Iranians were qualified to vote, 1.3 million for the first time. However, more than a third of the registered candidates were disqualified by the Guardian Council beforehand. All reformist groups and parties were either barred from the contest or boycotted it themselves, leaving the three main conservative factions to compete for seats. Even so, their efforts to create a single list of preferred candidates were unsuccessful.

Spokesman for the Guardian Council Abass Ali Kad-Khodayi said that he expected numbers voting in this year’s Majles election would increase by 8 to 9% over the figures for 2008.

There were doubts as to the fairness of the contest, and the rigging of ballots in favour of the ruling factions was expected by many. So much so that Hashemi Rafsanjani, two times former president and now head of the Expediency Council, told reporters as he cast his vote: “God willing, the result of these elections will reflect the actual numbers of voting papers that people drop into the ballot boxes.”

Source: Shahrzad News