Iranian legislative election, 2008

The parliamentary elections in 2008 in Iran were held on 14 March 2008 and ended with a victory of conservative forces.

Prehistory

Three political blocs competed for the majority in parliament.

• The "Principles faithful " ( a gathering point for conservatives and radical Islamists ) represent the camp to the President. Its supporters include, inter alia, the Iranian military. The commander in chief of the armed forces and the supreme commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard expressed in pre-election from their siding with the principles of faith.

• The "critical conservatives" under former chief negotiator with the International Atomic Energy Agency, Ali Larijani, who is pursuing a critical position towards the policy of Ahmadinejad.

• The reformers to Alī Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ayatollah Mohammed Khatami form the third block. They called on the Iranians to participate in the election to prevent those who do not want her to move back into the Parliament. The reformers are aiming for a relative liberalization and opening of the country to the West. With their demands they move, however, within the political system that they want to change in any way.

Before the election, a pre-selection of candidates by the Guardian Council was held. Candidates whose political views of the conservative- clerical governance did not appeal or whose candidacy in the opinion of the Guardian Council of the Islamic principles of the state and the rule of the Supreme Leader was not compatible, were excluded from the election. This approach is characteristic of every election in the Islamic Republic and is represented in Western media as the essential lack of democracy in the country.

Once was in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran, as Bahman Nirumand writes that the direct interference of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who advised the voters to vote for candidates who support the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

At the 2008 general election, wanted to 7,597 people running for the 290 seats in the Majlis. Of the movement of the reformer was about 900 candidates only allowed 100. In a first preselection 5,000 candidates had been recognized by regional election commissions of Wächterates, in a second round were another 2,000 candidates were disqualified. In a final round then the Guardians have qualified some of the disqualified again and some newly disqualified, so that 4,755 candidates took part in the elections.

Despite the pre-selection of candidates, the election was considered a test vote for the policies of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Iranian presidential election in 2009. More than 43 million Iranians were called to vote.

Result

The first results came from the electoral district of Qom. There, the candidate from the camp of President Ahmadinejad suggested the former chief negotiator with the IAEA, Ali Larijani, convincing. He is said to have received over 75 % of the vote, according to unofficial reports. Larijani was nominated on 26 May 2008 with 161 MPs in favor of the camp of the faithful and critical principles Conservative President of the Parliament, Gholam Ali Haddad its predecessor Nobility received 50 votes.

The runoff election on April 26, 2008 decided on a further 82 seats in Parliament in which the applicant had not obtained an absolute majority in the first ballot. The turnout was the runoff at 26 %, in the first election at about 60 %.