Record of women members of Tehran City Council broken; double that of previous terms

With the publication of the list of elected members of the Tehran City Council, it became clear that the number of female members of the fifth term of the Tehran City Council will be double that of each of the previous terms.

According to the results announced by the Tehran Governorship, Shahrbanoo Amani, Bahareh Arvin, Zahra Chamzar Nouri, Nahid Khodakarami, Zahra Nejad Bahram, and Elham Fakhari have been elected to the fifth city council, while in each of the previous terms, only three women had been elected to the city council.

In the recent period when the city council members increased to 30, only one-tenth of the council members were women, which was very noticeable in the council meetings.

In Iran, reformists, unlike fundamentalists, emphasize the presence of women in social activities and include a greater number of female candidates on their electoral lists. Similarly, the presence of six women among the winners of the city council elections is due to the fact that all candidates on the reformist list made it to the city council.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the elected mayor of Tehran City Council in recent terms, was accused by his critics of not employing female managers in the municipality and segregating female employees in some of the city's departments.

Elections for city and village councils in Iran were held simultaneously with the presidential and parliamentary by-elections on May 19.

Although international organizations emphasize that these elections are not free due to the Guardian Council's role in the process of reviewing the qualifications of presidential and parliamentary candidates, in the council elections, the responsibility for reviewing the qualifications of candidates lies with the Council Election Monitoring Board, which operates under the supervision of the Parliament.

Although some figures critical of the government were confirmed as qualified during this round of council elections, under pressure from the judiciary and the Guardian Council, the same body ultimately disqualified figures such as Abdullah Momeni, who was imprisoned for several years after the 2009 protests, from running in the council elections.

Source: Voice of America