Wampum

Update: May 23 13:20:10 EDT IRNA reports that Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei directed the Guardian Council to reconsider the disqualification of former minister of science, research and technology Mostafa Moeen and Vice-President Mohsen Mehralizadeh, after a request to that effect by Majlis Speaker Gholamali Haddad Adel. No mention of Rafat Bayat, as the context of this struggle between conservatives to retain the international legitimacy the elections the IIPF won for the regime is the application of the Expediency Council's December 1999 directive which mandates the Council to qualify the candidates based on solid reasons and evidence. The EC is currently chaired by Rafsanjani, but it is the Interior Ministry which put that issue in play by fax today.

Moeen is on record that he personally won't vote in a rigged election -- he didn't formally contest disqualification by the GC, and instead said he's taking the issue to the nation. A boycott by the IIPF is still possible.

Yesterday the pro-reform Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF) which won the presidential elections of 1997 and 2001, electing and re-electing President Mohammad Khatami in landslides over conservative candidates, issued a statement that disqualification of reformers will affect turnout. Today the Guardian Council, twelve clerics who banned most of the competitive pro-reform candidates for the 7th Majlis, approved the candidacies of former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (13.9%), former state TV head Ali Larijani (3.9%), current Tehran Mayor Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad (?), former IRGC commander-in-chief Mohsen Rezaei (?), former police chief Brigadier General Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf (?), and former Majlis speaker Mehdi Karroubi (4.8%).

Not approved were current Vice-President Mohsen Mehralizadeh (?) and former Minister of Science, Research and Technology Mostafa Moeen (4.1%), the candidate of the IIPF, both allies of President Mohammad Khatami, and current Majlis member Rafat Bayat (?), one of 12 women elected to the 7th Majlis, which appears to answer the "rejal" question.

I'm surprised by the GC rejection of Mehralizadeh and Moeen, though not Bayat. I haven't found if Ali Akbar Velayati (independent conservative), Akbar Alami (conservative), Reza Zavarei (bazarini), Naser Hejazi (soccer star), Aazam Taleghani (reform), and Mohsen Mehralizadeh (reforms-ports) withdrew or were also on the GC's rejection list.

I assume Ebrahim Yazdi was disqualified by the GC. He is every time, and like Rafat Bayat, his candidacy is really just a test of the GC.

Ahmad Tavakkoli (independent conservative) withdrew on May 1st.

The total number of people who filed applications to compete the election is 1,014. All but a score are local gestures.

Percentages shown are from the IRNA poll of 7,100 people in 11 cities a few months ago. Those shown "?" were not included in that poll.

It is possible the IIPF will call for a boycott of the election, and it is also possible that turnout will be well below the 50% mark.

I'll update with more recent polls (one was conducted in May) and annotate the candidates later in the day.