idates is more restrictive than ever. The Council, for instance, disqualified two well-known reformists, former minister of higher education Mostafa Moin and Vice President Mohsen Mehralizadeh. On May 23, on the instructions of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, the Guardian Council qualified Moin and Mehralizadeh. All candidates who hold distinctly alternative political viewpoints to those of the ruling elite, including all women candidates, remained disqualified. […]
In sum, Iran’s election laws make meaningful participation of all Iranians in the political process impossible. Iran’s elections will be meaningful and in accordance with international human rights standards only when both of these fundamental structural issues—discriminatory election laws and the Guardian Council’s arbitrary powers of exclusion—are addressed.
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