An election to the
Islamic City Council of Tehran took place on 19 May 2017, along with the
local elections nationwide.
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.
Campaign
In January 2017,
reformists started working with moderates and supporters of
Hassan Rouhani
Hassan Rouhani ( fa, حسن روحانی, Standard Persian pronunciation: ; born Hassan Fereydoun ( fa, حسن فریدون, links=no); 12 November 1948) is an Iranian politician who served as the seventh president of Iran from 2013 to 2021. ...
to compile a shared
electoral list
An electoral list is a grouping of candidates for election, usually found in proportional or mixed electoral systems, but also in some plurality electoral systems. An electoral list can be registered by a political party (a party list) or can ...
of candidates for
City Council of Tehran. In April 2017, the
Moderation and Development Party joined the
Reformists' Supreme Council for Policymaking, the body responsible for picking the candidates included in the list.
The final list under the brand name
The List of Hope, drew criticism from reformists
but was eventually endorsed by
Mohammad Khatami
Sayyid Mohammad Khatami ( fa, سید محمد خاتمی, ; born 14 October 1943) is an Iranian politician who served as the fifth president of Iran from 3 August 1997 to 3 August 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture from 1982 to ...
. It included only 2 out of the 13 incumbent reformist councilors 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. As a result, two other lists emerged: ''Omīd-e Eṣlāḥāṭ'' ( fa, امید اصلاحات, lit=Reforms' Hope), partially made up of the incumbent reformist councilors and ''Šaḥr-e Dīgar'' ( fa, شهر دیگر, lit=Alternative City) by independent activists.
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'' ( fa, خدمت, lit=Service).
Several candidates who were initially approved, including former
Islamic Iran Participation Front MP
Ali Tajernia,
Office for Strengthening Unity
The Office for Strengthening Unity (also Office for Consolidating Unity, fa, دفتر تحکیم وحدت, Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat), is an Iranian student organization created in 1979, and has been described as "the country's most well-known stud ...
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.
Results
References
{{Elections in Tehran
Tehran
2017
File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a ser ...
2010s in Tehran