Iranian City and Village Councils elections, 2006

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Iran
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The Iranian City and Village Councils election of 2006 took place on December 15, 2006. People elected representatives for City and Village Councils, who in their turn elected the mayors.

The elections happened on the same day as the election for the Assembly of Experts.

1 Candidates
2 Voting results
- 2.1 Other cities
- 2.2 Controversy about the results
3 References and notes
4 External links

[edit] Candidates

Every city and village in the country elected representatives. Iran's 46.5 million eligible voters elected about 233,000 candidates for more than 113,000 city and rural council posts.^[1]

Tehran's candidates, as the largest city in the country and the capital, included more famous candidates. These included former politicians Mohammad Ali Najafi (former Vice President under Mohammad Khatami and Minister of Education under Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani), Ahmad Masjed-Jamei (former Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance under Khatami), Masoumeh Ebtekar (former Vice President under Khatami and spokeswoman of Iranian students in Iran hostage crisis); sportsmen Hadi Saei (Taekwondo athlete and gold medalist in 2004 Summer Olympics), Rasoul Khadem (wrestler and gold medalist in 1996 Summer Olympics) and Alireza Dabir (wrestler and gold medalist in 2000 Summer Olympics); and even Parvin Ahmadinejad, sister of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Also notable is that the reformist parties reached a consensus to have a unified list of candidates for the election, contrary to the previous election where every reformist party had a separate list, some not even sharing a single candidate.

[edit] Voting results

A general tabulation of all of the elections in various cities and villages is not available, but results for Tehran City Council is used by some a general representative. Of 1,656,558 votes counted until 2006-12-21, the official results had noted the following as the first fifteen candidates (the same number that would be elected):^[2]

Rank	Name	Faction	Votes	Percentage
1	Mehdi Chamran	Qalibaf	603,766	36.45%
2	Morteza Talaei	Qalibaf	539,761	32.58%
3	Rasoul Khadem	Qalibaf	427,097	25.78%
4	Abbas Sheibani	Qalibaf	394,457	23.81%
5	Hadi Saei	Reformist	384,358	23.20%
6	Hamzeh Shakib	Qalibaf	330,233	19.93%
7	Alireza Dabir	Qalibaf	306,729	18.52%
8	Parvin Ahmadinejad	Ahmadinejad	242,501	14.64%
9	Masoumeh Ebtekar	Reformist	232,959	14.06%
10	Ahmad Masjed-Jamei	Reformist	216,015	13.04%
11	Mohammad Ali Najafi	Reformist	202,700	12.24%
12	Masoume Abad	Qalibaf	201,754	12.18%
13	Hassan Bayadi	Qalibaf	200,397	12.10%
14	Khosrow Daneshjou	Ahmadinejad	200,175	12.08%
15	Habib Kashani	Qalibaf	197,284	11.91%

These fifteen candidates were later confirmed elected as the new Tehran City councillors. ^[3]

[edit] Other cities

Partial results about other cities indicate:

In Isfahan, Ahmadinejad's supporters won three out of 11 seats
In Tabriz, Ahmadinejad's supporters won four out of 16 seats
In Qom, Ahmadinejad's supporters won three out of 9 seats
In Shiraz, Ahmadinejad's supporters won one out of 11 seats
In Ardabil, Ahmadinejad's supporters won one out of 9 seats^[4]

[edit] Controversy about the results

The reformist candidates have stated that the Ministry of Interior's lateness in announcing the temporary results, and not announcing any temporary results for two days after the end of the election have been contrary to the norms and that normally the results had been announced gradually as the vote counting were under progress. They have also claimed fraud in counting the votes, mentioning lost vote boxes^[5] and newly found boxes that reported zero votes for the reformist candidates.^[6]