Iran’s parliamentary elections are just around the corner. Not only that, but, at the same time, Iranians will also elect the members of the highly important Assembly of Experts as well.

Usually, apart from this being a season of elections, Western media and anti-Islamic Republic Persian-speaking (and Western-funded) media play at the elections from an angle that all Iranians and Iran experts have gotten to know over the years. It has gotten repetitive really and slightly boring to hear the same old trope being parroted time and time again: The Guardian Council is doctoring the elections, choosing hardliner politicians (because anyone who’s not a reformist is automatically a hardliner by Western standards), and cutting out reformists.

This would be true were it not for a few very key inconsistencies from recent memory: Rouhani was a moderate who had reformist support, yet he had his candidacy admitted and eventually won in 2012, and again in 2016 against now-president Raisi and more established conservatives. 2016 was also a year where moderates, or reformists, call them what you will, also won big in the Assembly of Experts and Parliament as well.

That aside, the Guardian Council itself, as well as its functions, seems to be a matter of contention, as it serves a number of functions: It makes sure legislation presented by parliament abides by the constitution, supervises elections, and vets candidates for all elections (presidential, parliamentary, and assembly of experts elections).

Barring the fact that the Guardian Council’s coming into existence is deeply linked with Iran’s Constitutional Revolution and served as a means to protect the constitution and from anything that could undermine it, perhaps it would not be without merit to point out that similar institutions are present in other parts of the world, but none more clearly than in the US, naturally.

The US Commission on Presidential Debates

It’s interesting how high the stakes run when you claim yourself to be the beacon of democracy and the “leader of the free world," particularly when so many interests are at stake that you’d be loath to include any outside voices that could perturb your status quo.

Bipartisanship is of course not new to the US system, but the accruement of interests and the US’ active participation in global imperialism, not to mention interests being accrued in Democratic and Republican circles, have made the entry of any third-party candidate into the US political system a near-impossible task. In fact, George Wallace was the last third-party candidate to have been successful in carrying any state, and that was in 1968, all because the electoral system is based on a winner-take-all basis.

More to the point, the system is, and has been implicitly rigged, to keep away any third-party figures from arriving to power, particularly in the presidential elections where the stakes are the highest. Not only do candidates from outside the main two parties not receive any media attention, but the presidential debates, which are organized by the FEC’s Commission on Presidential Debates, are exclusively organized to be bipartisan.

Aside from this, the laws that have been passed by both parties on funding and political fundraising also tend to favor them while making it exceedingly harder for any outside parties to fund their campaigns: When you have hundred-million dollar campaigns being launched by both Democrats and Republicans, and candidates being limited in the amount of money they acquire from their parties, having to rely on fundraisers and donations, how exactly is a third-party candidate expected to keep up with the sheer amount of money being spent on and by the Democrats and the GOP?

The US, as the system is currently set up, actively seeks to make it difficult and near-impossible for candidates from outside the system to arrive to power. People are merely given an illusion of choice, as both parties continue to serve their interests and appeal to the masses in what has seen the US transforming into an “illiberal democracy”.

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In political terms, when power is restricted within a ruling class that actively seeks to keep others from power, it is called an oligarchy. 

France, 500 signatures from elected officials

This fact is a little less known, but any presidential nominee in France is required to collect signatures from 500 elected officials, like mayors, MPs, and councillors. The signatures must be collected from at least 30 different administrative departments with no more than 50 signatures from one department.

Since these elected officials will also have their signatures published, meaning that people can see whom they’ve enabled to advance, many of them think twice about giving their signatures 

In theory, this has been set in place to make sure that any nominee would have public backing across France before he can advance, but in practice, it means that a presidential nominee from outside the established political fold would have very little chance of advancing his nomination.

Understanding the Guardian Council

One key difference between Iranian and Western institutions lies in how both look at practices meant to enable popular sovereignty. 

Western institutions often focus on individual freedom as being the backbone of any democratic practice, yet they perform a questionable job of enabling said freedom in their execution, often undermining it. The rise of populist approaches by many major political parties in the West that focus on distorting reality instead of appealing to their voters’ reason bears testament to this.

Institutions and political parties in Iran do not have that same outlook, however. The practice of exercising popular sovereignty is not one that is supposed to bring about not just A or ANY candidate, but one that should enable worthy candidates to advance in the electoral process; candidates that can successfully navigate domestic and global challenges. 

In vetting candidates, the Guardian Council takes the following into consideration (explanation to follow):

• Candidates must be Iranian citizens (some would argue that they must have Iranian ancestry as well, depending on which elections they are being nominated for).
• They must be capable managers, meaning that they have shown their capacity for management, policymaking, decision-making, and reasoning.
• Candidates must be god-fearing, in the sense that they would be handed the trust of their constituents, and must thus be known to be righteous and honest if they are to be worthy of this trust.

Naturally, the more sensitive the post, the more closely candidates are vetted. Candidates for the Assembly of Experts, for example, must be mujtahids (meaning they are capable of exercising ijtihad in formulating decisions on Islamic Law), since this is the elected council that is tasked with electing, monitoring, and dismissing the Leader if he is found to have lost his qualifications for the role.

One other key issue is the following: Being accepted for one election does not at all mean that a candidate has received a carte blanche for all elections. The vetting is intended to examine a candidate’s worthiness for the election in question. This means that statements or actions made by candidates who had been vetted in previous elections can alter their prospects either positively or negatively.

Since the Guardian Council is composed of a dozen members, half of whom are jurists and the other half legal experts, their interpretations or understanding of the requirements will naturally vary, and candidates are voted on, with those receiving 7 out of 12 votes being approved, which explains why candidates may be qualified to run in certain cycles and disqualified in others.

Taking all this into consideration, it is abundantly clear that Iran has a completely different outlook on popular sovereignty. In any case, who was it that ever said that the West had a corner on the practice of democracy?

Perhaps the West is more at ease projecting its own inherent flaws on other countries and shaming them for not emulating their own practices. It’s easy to have a self-flattering free-world mentality when you’re completely oblivious to your own inherent defects, especially when you have little recourse to fix them anyway: concentrate on an outside enemy, it’ll take people’s minds off of your own problems.