(Thanks to Ali Alfoneh and Robert Fragnito for their compilation)

Politics: 2008 Parliamentary Elections

  • About 43.8 million Iranians eligible to participate in the parliamentary elections on March 14.
  • Mostafa Tajerzadeh: “Only 130 seats of the parliament are open to semi competitive rivalry.”
  • At the campaign meeting of a female candidate from the Principalist Alliance, a lady enters the meeting hall asking for the husband of the candidate. The lady, who had also brought her child with her shouted to the public: “People! Know who you are voting for! Eight years ago I was engaged in a temporary marriage with the brother of the husband of this woman. Now our child is 7 years old, but the then-husband has abandoned us to the mercy of my family and he has not even obtained an ID for our child. When I tried to sue him, this man [the husband of the female candidate] used his influence to prevent me from obtaining my and my child’s rights. Now my child wants to go to school, but he has no ID. I ask you all, how can a person who ignores the rights of a woman and her 7 year old child send his wife to the parliament to defend your rights?! In a reaction to the shouting woman, the candidate and her husband who is the campaign chief of the female candidate both denied any knowledge of the lady and her child, after which the woman shouted more and showed her temporary marriage certificate to the public and declared she is ready to comply with a genetic test in order to prove her claims. According to Asr-e Iran the political meeting ended with police intervention.
  • Football trainer Hamid Estili was beaten up by locals in Gachsaran, where he was campaigning for Commander Khorshidi, father of Ahmadinejad’s son-in-law. According to Asr-e Iran, the locals where angry because of what they considered Tehran’s intervention in a local election. Estili left Gachsaran for Tehran after a few hours.
  • According to Asr-e Iran, a parliamentary candidate in Mian-Do-Ab has promised to give away one thousand emus through a lottery among the voters in Mian-Do-Ab, Shahin Dezh and Takab should he be elected to the parliament.
  • Supreme Leader: “The people of Iran will participate in elections with much greater vigor than before.”
  • Isa Kalantari’s candidacy to parliamentary elections is approved of 48 hours before the elections, upon which Kalantari resigns from his candidacy saying the Council of Guardians has not left him any time to run a campaign.
  • The Sunni minority of Tehran declares its support to the supporters of former president Khatami.

Politics: General

  • Iran’s former top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani said March 12 that the parliamentary elections scheduled for March 14 will play a key role in Iran’s diplomacy with the west.
  • Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani meets with Islamic Jihad leader and says that Israel’s defeat in the 33-day Lebanon war indicates Israel’s weakness.

Economy and Trade

Diplomacy

o Parliamentary speaker Haddad-Adel condemns the interview: “People who are disqualified [to run for parliamentary elections] should not tell their tale to the VOA.”

o Mohammad-Reza Tabesh of the parliament’s reformist minority condemns the interview.

o Pir-Moazzen who is visiting the United States says he is heart broken, but refutes all the rumors of his defection.

Religion, Culture, and Society

Human Rights and Labor

  • Four journalists in Iran sentenced to prison and fines in Gilan.
  • Imprisoned labor activist Mansour Ossanlou says a vote to the supporters of former president Khatami is Iran’s only chance of salvation.

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