The selection of a president in Iran is not done by the people, although an illusion of democracy is offered at the elections when people get to choose on the already selected candidates. It is done instead by selection from the ayatollah council, who keeps anyone remotely contrary to them out of contention altogether.
But this year, 33 women candidates, have placed their name on the list to be scrutinized by the council.
Today, however, the constitutional watchdog group in that country has established that women cannot be candidates for the presidential appointment.
The Ayatollah Yazdi went further by saying that the law does not approve of a woman president or even that she place her name in the candidate's ballot.
The Guardian Council, as it is known, is made up primarily of religious figures and Ayatollahs who then vet any presidential candidate but also any parliamentarian, effectively shutting the door to any dissenting voices.
Although more than 600 people have added their name to the list to replace Ahmadinejad who has now run out his possible number of terms, there is absolutely no reason to believe that the Council has not already lined up its preferences ahead of the appointment.
The final list, in fact is not expected to have but a few names after vetting concludes.
The law cited by the council in regards to women's ascending the presidential chair, is that the president can only be chosen from religious-political men, or 'rijal', a plural for man in Arabic, that is common in Farsi language too.
Source : al Jazeera 5/17/13
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