1950 Iranian legislative election
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Parliamentary elections were held in Iran in 1950.
Background
Elections for the 16th Majlis began in late July 1949. The 16th Majlis was to be a bicameral parliament composed of the Majlis as the lower house and the Senate as the upper house. Following a framework set down in the 1906 Constitution, the Shah began appointing 30 of the 60 senators. As a reaction to the Shah's selection of royalists friendly to his views, and concerns about his rigging of the general elections, Mohammad Mosaddegh called for a protest on 13 October 1949. Thousands marched from his mansion to the royal palace gardens. There, in a meeting with Interior Minister Abdolhossein Hazhir, 20 opposition and radical politicians led by Mosaddegh demanded a halt to the Shah's hindrance of free elections. After three days of sit-in protest they extracted a promise from Hazhir that he would conduct elections fairly. Directly afterward, the committee of 20 formed the National Front coalition. In the next few weeks, elections were challenged as rigged. As a result, Hazhir was assassinated on 4–5 November 1949 by the Fada'iyan-e Islam. In February 1950 at the conclusion of elections for the 16th Majlis, the National Front took eight seats in the Majlis—Abol-Ghasem Kashani and Mosaddegh both won seats—and from that platform for the next few years continued to call for reductions in the power of the monarchy; a return to the Constitution of 1906. With the backing of the extremist Fada'iyan, the regular clergy, and the middle-class people, despite its minority toehold in parliament, the National Front became the main opposition movement of Iran. The self-serving constitutional changes had created a backlash against the Shah.[1]
Campaign
On 28 July 1949, the term of the 15th Majlis came to its natural end.
Results
According to Michele Penner Angrist,
References
- JSTOR 3012310.
- S2CID 145566712. Archived from the originalon 24 September 2015.
- ^ a b Milani 2012, p. 170
- ^ ISBN 0739117572.
- ISBN 0822952998.
- ^ a b Azimi 2008, p. 140
- ISBN 978-0295801124
- ISBN 978-1601270436
- ISBN 978-1595588265,
the sixteenth Majles elections held in early 1950, the national front won eleven seats. Mossadeq headed the victor's list in Tehran. Kashani, Shayegan, Baqai, Makki, Haerizadeh, and Nariman followed. Moazemi, Saleh, Razavi, and Azad won in their home towns of Golpayegan, Kashan, Kerman, and Sabzevar. The eleven promptly formed their national Caucus (fraksiun-e Vatan). Kashani rarely participated in parliamentary meetings, deeming them inappropriate for a cleric of his standing.
Further reading
- Parliamentary Politics in Revolutionary Iran: The Institutionalization of Factional Politics (Hardcover) (Publisher: Gainesville : University Press of Florida, ©1996.) ISBN 978-0-8130-1461-6