Parliamentary elections were held in

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

in 1954.

Political parties A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific ideological or pol ...

were banned from contesting the

election An election is a formal group decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has opera ...

, and all 136 elected MPs were

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

s. The elections were " rigged and far from a legitimate process". Upper house elections began in February while the lower house elections in provinces began at the same time. Lower house election in

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

was held on March 9 and 10.

Campaign

The outlawed opposition formed by the National Front activists after 1953 coup d'état, 'National Resistance Movement' (NRM) put all its effort to campaign for its twelve candidates in Tehran, namely

Ahmad Razavi Seyyed Ahmad Razavi ( fa, سید احمد رضوی; 1906–1971) was an Iranian engineer and politician. Early life and education Razavi was born in 1906 in Kerman. Hailed from a landed upper-class family, his father headed Shaykhi community in ...

Abdollah Moazzami Abdullah Moazami ( fa, عبدالله معظمی) was an Iranian lawyer and politician. He taught at University of Tehran and was a member of Parliament of Iran for four consecutive terms from 1944 to 1953. Moazami came from an upper-class and tit ...

Allahyar Saleh Allah-Yar Saleh ( fa, اللهیار صالح, born Saleh Arani; 1897–1981) was an Iranian politician and diplomat who was Iranian Ambassador to the United States during Mohammad Mosaddegh's premiership. Career Allah-Yar Saleh was a member of t ...

Ali Shayegan Ali Shayegan ( fa, علی شایگان, ʿAli Šāygān; March 1, 1903 – May 15, 1981), was an Iranian politician and an opponent of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and lived in political exile in New York and New Jersey from 1958. Shayegan, one of ...

Kazem Hassibi Kazem Hassibi (Hasibi) ( fa, کاظم حسیبی) (born Tehran, October 1906 – died Tehran, October 28, 1990) was an Iranian academic, parliamentarian, National Front leader, and oil adviser to Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh during Iran's oil ...

Mohammad-Ali Angaji Mohammad-Ali Angaji ( fa, محمدعلی انگجی) was an Iranian Shia cleric and politician. A loyal National Front member, he served as a member of parliament during the 17th term and ran for the 1954 election in Tehran. He was elected to t ...

Mahmoud Nariman Mahmud is a transliteration of the male Arabic given name (), common in most parts of the Islamic world. It comes from the Arabic triconsonantal root Ḥ-M-D, meaning ''praise'', along with ''Muhammad''. Siam Mahmud *Mahmood (singer) (born 199 ...

Karim Sanjabi Karim Sanjabi ( fa, کریم سنجابی; 11 September 1905 – 4 July 1995) was an Iranian politician of National Front. Early life He was born in Kermanshah in September 1905 to the chief of the Kurdish Sanjâbi tribe. He studied law and ...

, Bagher Jalali Mousavi,

Asghar Parsa Asghar Parsa ( fa, اصغر پارسا; 1919-2007) was a prominent member of Iran's National Front. After graduating from Tehran University's School of Law, he served in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was elected to Majlis from Khoy in 195 ...

, Ahmad Akhgar and

Ahmad Zirakzadeh Ahmad Zirakzadeh (6 March 1908 – 25 August 1993)http://postchinews.ir/احمد-زیرک-زاده-یار-صدیق-دکتر-مصدق/ ( fa, احمد زیرک زاده) was one of the founders of National Front of Iran, an Iranian party which was c ...

, of whom some were in hiding. However, they could not rely on a vast network of activists because of suffering from organizational weakness. To distribute NRM statements in Tehran, Bazargan and Bakhtiar had to take taxi and throw the paper out of the window and speak in French to conceal their identity and purpose from the driver. Bazargan organized some 2,000 nationalists to vote in

Sepahsalar Mosque The Sepahsālār Mosque ( fa, مسجد سپهسالار - ''Masjed-e Sepahsālār'') is a famous historic mosque in Tehran, Iran. The construction project of the mosque was started in 1879 upon the order of Mirza Hosein Sepahsalar, the Grand Viz ...

, however they were barred from casting their vote by the security forces, the ''čāqukeš'' led by

Shaban Jafari Shaban Jafari ( fa, شعبان جعفری; 19 August 1921 – 21 March 2006), often known as Shaban the Brainless ( fa, شعبان بی‌مخ, Sha'bān-e Bi-mokh, links=no) or Shaban the Crown-Bestower ( fa, شعبان تاجبخش, Sha'bān-e T ...

and fascist organizations like

SUMKA The National Socialist Workers Party of Iran ( fa, حزب سوسیالیست ملی کارگران ایران, Ḥezb-e Sosīālīst-e Mellī-e Kārgarān-e Īrān; Hezbe Sosiâliste Mellie Kârgarâne Irân), better known by its abbreviation SUM ...

, who were present in the streets.

Results

* In

, all 12 winners declared were pro-

Shah Shah (; fa, شاه, , ) is a royal title that was historically used by the leading figures of Iranian monarchies.Yarshater, EhsaPersia or Iran, Persian or Farsi, ''Iranian Studies'', vol. XXII no. 1 (1989) It was also used by a variety of ...

candidates led by Ja'far Behbahani. A seat was also given to Mohammad Derakhshesh, a trade unionist and chairman of Teachers Association.

Media coverage

In the United States

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote that a voter bowed three times to the ballot box and when asked why, he said "I am merely making my obeisance to the magic box. When one drops in a ballot for Mohammad osaddeq lo, when the ballot is opened it is transformed into a vote for Fazlollah ahedi. ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

'' magazine reported:

References

1954 elections in Asia 1954 in Iran Non-partisan elections Iranian Senate elections National Consultative Assembly elections Electoral fraud in Iran Lower house elections in Iran {{Iran-election-stub