Iran’s Top Sunni Cleric Criticizes Body Overseeing Elections

As Iran prepares for parliamentary polls, the country’s most prominent Sunni cleric has criticized the work of the Guardian Council, a hard-line constitutional body that supervises elections and vets candidates.

Iranians will be called to polling stations on March 1 to choose between candidates running for seats in the 290-seat parliament and the 88-member Assembly of Experts, a chamber of theologians that appoints the Islamic Republic’s supreme leader.

A low turnout is expected, with the Guardian Council having already disqualified thousands of candidates in both elections, including former President Hassan Rouhani.

Molavi Abdulhamid, the Sunni Friday prayer leader of the southeastern city of Zahedan, said in his Friday sermon that the entire electoral process has been placed in the hands of the council members, who are directly and indirectly appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Pointing to “many problems” in the Islamic Republic’s constitution, the outspoken cleric reiterated his call for constitutional changes.

"This legislation was ratified 44 years ago by the Assembly of Experts, and the majority of its members have since passed away and are now in the purgatory," he said. "A new generation has come and this generation is different from the previous one, but the constitution has not changed.”

Molavi drew attention to the mass disqualification of candidates, emphasizing that “the vision of officials should not be restricted to one religion, ethnicity and faction.” 

The Guardian Council was created by Khamenei. It consists of six clerics appointed directly by him and an additional six jurists who receive approval from members of parliament based on a list given by the judiciary chief, himself appointed by the Islamic Republic’s leader.

In previous elections, the council disqualified about half of the candidates on spurious grounds.

Turnout in the last parliamentary election was about 42 percent, the lowest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and prospects for a higher participation in March are dim.

Iranians appear apathetic about the vote, the first since anti-establishment protests rocked Iran in 2022-2023.