A number of Iranian MPs want to pass a law that would let candidate representatives supervise elections and the counting of votes.
Etemad newspaper reports: “Signatories of the initiative say that while the election law already allows for this in an indirect manner, their experience shows that in many cases, governors bar representatives from being present when ballots are cast, so they intend to make the matter completely legal.”
MP Amin Shaabani, one of the initiators of the plan, told Etemad: “The number of signatures on the initiative is substantial, which already shows that current MPs are concerned about election transparency.”
“At voting centres, candidate representatives often have been removed,” Shaabani said. “If this plan is approved prior to the registry of candidates, many minds will be put at ease.”
He said the initiative will be presented to Parliament’s speaker on Sunday, by which time he predicted it will bear more than 50 signatures.
The Iranian establishment has been greatly concerned about the parliamentary election set for next March. The conservative elite refers to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s chief of staff as the leader of a “deviant current” that is trying to derail the Islamic Republic by weakening the “clergy and the supreme leadership.”
The government has been warned to refrain from any activity that might be interpreted as influencing the outcome of the election.
The head of the Guardian council, Ahmad Jannati, has accused the government of spending large sums of money in order to take over Parliament.
The deputy of the judiciary, Hojjatoleslam Ebrahim Raisi, has said the government must assure everyone that it will not interfere in the coming election.
