Iranian MPs fail to bypass the Guardian Council
Iranian parliament members failed in a bid to weaken the powers of the Interior Ministry and Guardian Council to vet candidates.
Iran’s powerful Guardian Council, which vets candidates and legislation, rejected a parliamentary bill that would allow current members of parliament to automatically qualify for the 2016 parliamentary elections.
“The parliamentary bill regarding continuous approval of the members of parliament was discussed at today’s session of the Guardian Council and some parts of it were deemed contrary to the constitution,” Guardian Council spokesman Nejatollah Ebrahimian said April 29.
Based on Ebrahimian’s comments, it's unclear if the Guardian Council has officially rejected the bill in a vote, but a number of Iranian media wrote in their headlines, “The Guardian Council rejected the continuous approval of members of parliament.”
The so-called continuous approval bill passed April 28 in an open session of parliament with 125 in favor, 54 opposed and eight abstentions. The bill states: “In the case that a current member of parliament registers for the following elections, their approval for parliament becomes continuous.” The bill was presented by Mohammad Reza Pour-Ebrahimi as a clause to an existing election law.
