Pathology of the Political Selection Process in Iran's Presidential Elections

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Associate Professor, Department of Political Science, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Ph.D. Studetn, Department of Political Science, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.

10.22059/jpq.2024.377529.1008186

Abstract

Introduction
Political selection in Iran's presidential elections is a key process in determining the geometry of power in the Islamic Republic. Even though Iran is one of the countries with a long history in establishing the institution of elections, still, the process of electoral political selection has not reached the desired state and has faced many ups and downs. The fluctuating and sometimes unpredictable situation in the presentation of the list of approved candidates is one of the results of this situation, and as a result, there have been protests and dissatisfaction in the society and among the political activists. These damages make the necessity of conducting research in order to know their roots very serious.
 
Methodology
This article using the descriptive-analytic and retrospective analysis methods and based on the content analysis of the first-hand texts of political rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran and case and field studies of the process of political selection in the Islamic Republic of Iran, has dealt with the pathology of the process of political selection in the presidential elections of Iran.
 
Results and discussion
With the victory of the Islamic Revolution, the Assembly of Constitutional Law Experts started drafting the Constitution from August 19, 1979 to November 15 of the same year. In the framework of this law and based on the promise that the new political system is a republic, for the first time in the history of Iran, the post of president was defined in this law. The conditions of the president, the qualification review body and the election monitoring body are the most important coordinates in determining the political selection process in Iran's presidential elections, all of which are specified in the constitution.
The findings show that the political selection process in Iran's presidential elections is damaged from two sources: 1- the content of legal texts, such as the quality of the laws, 2- executive and practical processes include lack of a legal basis for the role of parties in political selection, lack of a legal mechanism to require the selection body to state the documentation and reasoning bases of the examination of the qualifications, lack of a legal mechanism to hear candidates' explanations, lack of transparency in mechanisms, the possibility of applying taste in the preparation of queries, no legal prohibition of members of the Guardian Council to express biased political opinions, the silence of the law regarding conflict of interest situations and finally, establishing some effective approvals in reviewing qualifications without public announcement.
 
Conclusion
 It seems that the best and most accessible solution to solve the aforementioned damages is to try to quantify and objectify the criteria. Policy recommendations include exemplary description of quality conditions, use of legal fiction, using a quorum to collect signatures from citizens as an aid in verifying qualifications, using a quorum to collect signatures from current and former officials of the system as an aid in verifying qualifications, creating an optional pre-registration system for candidates, determination of possible conflicts of interest, paying more attention to the issue of training executive agents in the qualification review mechanism, clarifying the qualification review mechanism, recognition of the role of parties to have their desired candidate in the elections within the framework of the constitution, adherence to the principle of Estes'hab, requiring the selection body to provide documentation and reasoning for unapproved candidates, determining the mechanism for hearing the explanations of unapproved candidates, official and public announcement of any legal resolution affecting qualifications, creating a legal prohibition for the activity and biased political opinion of members of the Guardian Council, legal prohibition of membership of persons with party and factional background in the Guardian Council, and finally using the capacity of the intra-party competition mechanism to select candidates.
 

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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POLITICAL QUARTERLY
Volume 55, Issue 1
April 2025
Pages 85-53

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History

  • Receive Date: 17 September 2024
  • Revise Date: 01 December 2024
  • Accept Date: 10 December 2024

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