A spokesman for Iran's Guardianship Council has declared that there will be no appeal against the disqualification in the presidential elections as the council's influence grows.
“The presidential election law does not allow for appeals against disqualification and the Supervisory Council's decision is final,” Hadi Tahan Nazih said in a television interview on Wednesday about the June 28 election.
He insisted the rules were not specific to general elections scheduled following the sudden death of Prime Minister Ebrahim Raisi this month, but were standard procedure under normal circumstances.
Earlier this month, Former President Hassan Rouhani They criticized the Oversight Council, appointed by Khamenei, for undermining democracy by rejecting candidates with opposing political views and reducing the role of people in elections.
“This is not a defense of myself, but of the foundations of republican (and Islamic) law and of the presidency, which as the direct representative of the entire Iranian people should not be weakened any further,” Rouhani said in the open letter.
The former president, who was barred from running in the March 1 Assembly of Experts elections, published a letter addressed to “the Iranian people” on his personal website.
The 12-member Guardian Council, half of whom are Sharia-savvy clerics appointed by the supreme leader and the other half are laypeople or clerics appointed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court, also appointed by the supreme leader, has played an increasingly important role in disqualifying candidates for elections.
Debarment targets not only dissidents and anti-establishment figures, but also regularly targets prominent insiders who have fallen out of favor with hardline regimes.
Former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani was barred by the Guardian Council from running against Ebrahim Raisi in 2021 because his daughter lives in the United States. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei called his disqualification “unjust” before the election but did not reinstate Larijani by state decree, as many expected.
