Iran Presidential Election in 2013: Electoral System, Candidates and the Results

Iran Presidential Election in 2013: Electoral System, Candidates and the Results

Electoral System

         The President of Iran is the country's highest official person directly elected by Iranian citizens. He is the chief of the executive branch, and the second most important position after the Supreme Leader. Duties are similar to heads of governments in other countries, except that the armed forces, Chief judiciary system and state television  are under the control of the Supreme Leader of Iran.
         Any Iranian citizen born in Iran, believing in God and the Islam religion and who has always been loyal to the Iran Constitution may register as a presidential candidate. An institution called the Election Monitoring Agency (EMA) and managed by the Guardian Council vets registered candidates and selects a handful to run in the election. The Guardian Council does not announce publicly the reason for rejections of particular candidates although those reasons are explained to each candidate. Registered candidates qualifications are then reviewed by the Guardian Council and after the final approvement, they are placed on the ballot.

          In addition to expressing their future presidential goals and objectives on fliers, posters and banners for the purpose of propogation, each of the final approved candidates has the right to use National TV and Radio (IRIB) for their presidential election campaigns in a specific period of time before election. In total, each candidate will use 405 minutes on Public TV and 285 minutes on Public Radio. This time comprises the candidates' own campaign programs as well as participation in the specific discussion shows. In addition, there are three main live group debates on TV. The debates are held in three chapters between candidates.
         There are also opinion polls in three main groups of field polls, telephone polls and online polls which begin after the announcement of candidate’s final list. IPOS which is one of the Iranian Election Tracking Polls and it is said that it is the only official one runs a daily poll system for the election. This poll is based on the daily phone interviews with a sample size of around 1000 people per day.
         24 hours prior to the election day, the candidates are not authorized to have any propagation on their campaigns and on the day of election, the polls begins in numerous centers all over the country and various countries for Iranian citizens living outside the boundaries of Iran. Meanwhile, an electoral commission, consists of eleven persons including three legal, seven experts and one from the parliament, supervises polling and the process of counting the votes after the election. The electoral commission will announce the results after the Ministry of Interior confirmation.


Iranian Presidential Election in 2013, the Candidates and the results

         The eleventh presidential election was held in Iran on 14 June 2013. Among all 680 registered candidates, the Guardian Council approved eight ones to run in the election. They were as the followings:

-          Hassan Rouhani (from Combatant Clergy Association, Moderate Reformist)

-          Mohamad Reza Aref (Reformist – withdrew his candidacy and endorsed Hassan Rouhani)

-          Mohsen Rezaee (from Moderation and Development Party, Conservative)

-          Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (from Islamic Society of Engineers, Fundamentalist)

-          Saeed Jalili (from Front of Islamic Revolution Stability, Fundamentalist)

-          Ali Akbar Velayati (from Islamic Coalition Party, Fundamentalist)

-          Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel (Fundamentalist – withdrew his candidacy)

-          Mohammad Gharazi (Independent)

         Among all the above mentioned candidates, Hassan Rouhani was the victorious and elected in the first round of voting with 50.88% of the votes. Mohamad Bagher Ghalibaf was the next candidate after him who achieved the majority of votes with 16.46% of the total votes.

                           Results of the election: the candidate with the plurality of votes in each districts (from Wikimedia)


         Hassan Rouhani is the seventh president of Iran and he was officially inaugurated on 3 August, 2013. He began his presidency with the slogan “Government of Prudence and Hope” on 4 August 2013.