Female Hardliner Politician Registers to Run for Iran’s President

Former female lawmaker Zohreh Elahian has registered to run in Iran's June 28 snap presidential vote, potentially becoming the first woman ever allowed to stand if approved by the Guardian Council.

Elahian, 57, is a physician and former member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee. She was elected to parliament twice on the hardliners’ slate.

In her speech following registration, Elahian declared her motto: “Sound government, sound economy, sound society,” and pledged to combat corruption.

Like other hardliners, Elahian supports compulsory hijab rules. In March, Canada imposed sanctions against her for endorsing the death penalty for protesters involved in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement. Her candidacy comes after months of harsh policies and actions by the government against women who defy compulsory hijab.

Zohreh Elahian enters interior ministry to register

Elahian’s qualification to run hinges on the Guardian Council's interpretation of a controversial article of the Constitution. The Guardian Council, the sole body empowered by the Constitution to interpret it, has historically disqualified female candidates. This disqualification is based on Article 115, which stipulates that candidates must be from among political or religious "rijal" (the plural of "rajul"), a masculine Arabic noun meaning "men."

However, some constitutional experts and politicians interpret "rijal" to mean "figures" or "persons" irrespective of gender, rather than exclusively "men."

Azam Taleghani, a veteran reformist politician and journalist, registered to run in every presidential election from 1997 until her death in 2019. Despite being described as an “Islamic feminist,” Taleghani was rejected by the Guardian Council every time.

In 2009, populist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad proposed Elahian as Minister of Welfare and Social Security. However, she declined the nomination, citing opposition from senior Shia clerics (maraje’) to women serving as ministers.

Another of Ahmadinejad’s female nominees, hardliner Marzieh Vahid-Dastjerdi, a physician and former lawmaker, was approved by parliament as Minister of Health, making her the first and only female minister in the history of the Islamic Republic.

Several other political figures registered to run on Saturday, including ultra-hardliner Tehran mayor Alireza Zakani, reformist lawmaker and former first deputy speaker Masoud Pezeshkian, and Vahid Haghanian, a member of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s office.

Haghanian’s registration, dubbed by social media users as the “biggest surprise” of the election registrations, and his motives has baffled observers. Like Elahian, many believe there is no chance he will be qualified to run. Some people even claim he no longer holds a position at Khamenei’s office.

“We were quick to judge about him. He is known as the black box, but he has apparently not held any positions in a long time,” Hossein Ebrahimi, a conservative cleric and politician, tweeted. Ebrahimi added that there is a high possibility of Haghanian’s disqualification, apparently due to open cases with the judiciary.

This may refer to allegations of espionage against him that surfaced in January after the execution of Mohsen Saravani, 24, on charges of spying for Israel. Saravani had been photographed with Haghanian and was said to be close to him. Around the same time Haghanian ceased to appear in public.

Behnam Gholipour, expatriate journalist, in a tweet on Saturday called Haghanian an “scapegoat candidate”. “He will be sacrificed to mask disqualification of others. Then everyone will say Larijani and Ahmadinejad don’t even count [because] Khamenei’s right-hand man was disqualified,” he wrote.