Mohammad Hossein Moghimi, the head of the Election Office, says it is in a legal dispute with the Guardian Council over the disqualification of Minoo Khaleghi, an Isfahan parliamentary candidate who won the third-highest number of votes in the February 26 election.
Moghimi told ISNA on Monday March 28 that he is looking forward to the council’s response to his office’s challenge of the disqualification.
“The Guardian Council’s position regarding the Isfahan issue is different from that of the Ministry of the interior, so we have informed them of our position,” Moghimi was quoted as saying.
In addition, the Isfahan governor announced last week that he has filed a challenge of the Guardian Council’s disqualification of Khaleghi after the election.
The Guardian Council is charged with approving all candidates who go on to campaign in elections. The disqualification of a candidate after an election is unprecedented.
The council has not officially announced the reason for the Isfahan candidate’s disqualification.
Khaleghi was endorsed by the reformists, and it appears that the move to disqualify Khaleghi, who ranked third in the number of votes received, may be an attempt to get a conservative candidate who came in sixth place into Parliament.
