by-election A by-election, also known as a special election in the United States and the Philippines, a bye-election in Ireland, a bypoll in India, or a Zimni election (Urdu: ضمنی انتخاب, supplementary election) in Pakistan, is an election used to f ...

was held in September 1974 to fill the vacant seat for Shahsavar in the National Consultative Assembly, the lower house of the Imperial State of Iran.

Campaign

At the time, the ruling New Iran Party led by

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Amir-Abbas Hoveyda held the absolute majority in the parliament and its opposition, the People's Party, was regarded a "pseudo-opposition" party loyal to the state. The representative of Shahsavar in Mazandaran Province who had been appointed to a cabinet office, resigned his seat due to legal requirements. In October 1974, the newly-appointed

Minister of Interior An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a Cabinet (government), cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and iden ...

Jamshid Amouzegar chose his deputy ministers, neither of whom having any experience in holding elections. The next general elections were scheduled in less than a year and though it was not legally mandatory for the government to hold an election for that vacancy, Amouzegar decided to use the occasion to gain experience. Iran's monarch

Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , title = Shahanshah Aryamehr Bozorg Arteshtaran , image = File:Shah_fullsize.jpg , caption = Shah in 1973 , succession = Shah of Iran , reign = 16 September 1941 – 11 February 1979 , coronation = 26 October ...

agreed that the election could to be held, stating "They will tell you I prefer this man or that woman, this party or that party. This is false. What I want is a clean election". Nasser Ameri, the new secretary-general of the People's Party, had become overly critical of the governing party to the extent it was perceived to had "endangered the legitimacy of the system". He initially instructed the local of branch of his party in Shahsavar to

boycott A boycott is an act of nonviolent, voluntary abstention from a product, person, organization, or country as an expression of protest. It is usually for moral, social, political, or environmental reasons. The purpose of a boycott is to inflict som ...

the by-election for the vacated seat but then was able to persuade the government to allow his party campaign freely. People's Party launched a serious campaign for its candidate, which focused on criticizing the government's ability to "implement efficiently the shah's intentions (''manviat-e shahaneh'')". The party's candidate Mohammad-Reza Kabiri also acted like a real opposition candidate (in contrast to his role as a "pseudo-opposition") during the campaign and even condemned the administration of Hoveyda. This led the city to undergo an "election fever", and both parties sent several of their leaders to the city to boost the campaign. This was a sign that the New Iran Party's candidate might lose the election, though the former representative of the constituency from the ruling party had won the previous election by a wide margin.

Results

Controversy

Mansour Khalatbari, the candidate of the ruling New Iran Party, said on 28 September "my defeat is utterly impossible" as the ballots were being counted. The opposition candidate Mohammad-Reza Kabiri won a large majority, but the government did not acknowledge this and officially declared that the former had won the election by a narrow margin of 646 votes. People's Party immediately denounced the results and its secretary-general publicly stated that an

electoral fraud Electoral fraud, sometimes referred to as election manipulation, voter fraud or vote rigging, involves illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the vote share of a favored candidate, depressing the vote share of ...

had happened. The government denied this, and initiated a complaint against a female member of the opposition party for "undermining credibility in the fairness of the elections". In response to the controversy,

remarked that the election was fair, but also said the ruling party "must probe this event to see what has caused it. The same applies to the opposition party", adding that "on the basis of sound democracy... one vote more or less is enough to have one elected or defeated. But it is not right to repudiate elections if one loses by even a single vote. Iranians must bear in mind that they must refrain from slander when engaged in free elections". The opposition party stated that the ballot box in a village with 80 residents, included 1,044 ballots. About two weeks later, the government declared that 444 lived there and other voters had gone to the village to vote.

Aftermath

Asadollah Alam Asadollah Alam ( fa, اسدالله علم; 24 July 1919 – 14 April 1978) was an Iranian politician who was prime minister during the Shah's regime from 1962 to 1964. He was also minister of Royal Court, president of Pahlavi University and gov ...

, the founder of People's Party said Ameri has "reached the end of his rope" and he should either choose to let go or become a dissident. On 29 December 1974, the party's central committee discharged Ameri from his office and replaced him with Mohammad Fazaeli. A few days later in January 1975, Ameri died in a car accident.

References

Footnotes

Sources

* * * * {{Refend 1974 in Iran By-elections in Iran Tonekabon County