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 Turkm ...

on 10 April 1992, with a second round on 8 May. The elections were the first parliamentary elections held in Iran since the death of

Ayatollah Khomeini Ruhollah Khomeini, Ayatollah Khomeini, Imam Khomeini ( , ; ; 17 May 1900 – 3 June 1989) was an Iranian political and religious leader who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989. He was the founder of ...

and during

Ali Khamenei Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei ( fa, سید علی حسینی خامنه‌ای, ; born 19 April 1939) is a Twelver Shia ''marja and the second and current Supreme Leader of Iran, in office since 1989. He was previously the third president ...

's leadership. It marked a rivalry between the two main organizations at the time, the right-wing

Combatant Clergy Association The Combatant Clergy Association ( fa, جامعۀ روحانیت مبارز, jâmeʿe-ye rowhâniyat-e mobârez) is a politically active group in Iran, but not a political party in the traditional sense. It has never been registered as a politica ...

(supporters of President

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani ( fa, اکبر هاشمی رفسنجانی, Akbar Hāshemī Rafsanjānī, born Akbar Hashemi Bahramani, 25 August 1934 – 8 January 2017) was an Iranian politician, writer, and one of the founding fathers of the Islami ...

) and the left-wing

Association of Combatant Clerics The Association of Combatant Clerics ( fa, مجمع روحانیون مبارز, ''Majma'-e rowhāniyūn-e mobārez'') is an Iranian reformist clerical political party. It is regarded as a left-wing party within the Iranian political spectrum. H ...

. The results marked a victory for the right-wingers who obtained an absolute majority with more than 70 percent of the seats.

Campaign

Main groups contesting in the elections were: *

, endorsed by Islamic Aligned Organizations *

, backed by the Association of the Women of the Islamic Republic and Coalition of Imam's Line groups, including student association

Office for Strengthening Unity The Office for Strengthening Unity (also Office for Consolidating Unity, fa, دفتر تحکیم وحدت, Daftar-e Tahkim-e Vahdat), is an Iranian student organization created in 1979, and has been described as "the country's most well-known stud ...

and trade union

Worker House “Human is entitled to nothing but his own efforts”. , founded = , legalised = as political organization , headquarters = Tehran, Iran , wing1_title = Political branch , wing1 = Islamic Labour Party , wing2_title = Former political af ...

Freedom Movement of Iran The Freedom Movement of Iran (FMI) or Liberation Movement of Iran (LMI; fa, نهضت آزادی ايران, Nahżat-e āzādi-e Irān) is an Iranian pro-democracy political organization founded in 1961, by members describing themselves as "Muslim ...

, the political group led by

Mehdi Bazargan Mehdi Bazargan ( fa, مهدی بازرگان; 1 September 1907 – 20 January 1995) was an Iranian scholar, academic, long-time pro-democracy activist and head of Iran's interim government. He was appointed prime minister in February 1979 by Aya ...

, boycotted the elections on the grounds that their rights to compete in fair elections had been curbed and there was official discrimination toward them. The duration of official campaigns started one week after Ramadan and were limited to seven days, ending 24 hours before the polling process started. The candidates and campaigners were obliged to focus on their merits, rather than

negative campaigning Negative campaigning is the process of deliberately spreading negative information about someone or something to worsen the public image of the described. A colloquial, and somewhat more derogatory, term for the practice is mudslinging. Delibe ...

. Several taboos on advertisements were broken during the elections, for the first time foreign academic credentials received positive publicity and some campaign literatures were void of regular political and ideological jargon (such as following Imam's Line or highlighting activities against Shah's regime).

Disqualifications

Some 3,150 candidates registered to run for a seat, but the

Guardian Council The Guardian Council, (also called Council of Guardians or Constitutional Council, fa, شورای نگهبان, Shourā-ye Negahbān) is an appointed and constitutionally mandated 12-member council that wields considerable power and influence i ...

disqualified about one-third of them, approving only some 2,050. Among the disqualified candidates, 39 were incumbent MPs either belonged to or had sympathized with the

, including

Sadegh Khalkhali Mohammed Sadeq Givi Khalkhali (27 July 1926 – 26 November 2003) ( fa, صادق خلخالی) was an Iranian Shia cleric who is said to have "brought to his job as Chief Justice of the revolutionary courts a relish for summary execution" that ...

, Ateghe Sediqi, Hossein Mousavi Tabrizi, Asadollah Bayat-Zanjani and Ebrahim Asgharzadeh.

Behzad Nabavi Behzad Nabavi ( fa, بهزاد نبوی) (born 1941) is an Iranian reformist politician. He served as Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of Iran and was one of the founders of the reformist party Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization. P ...

and

Mohammad Khatami Sayyid Mohammad Khatami ( fa, سید محمد خاتمی, ; born 14 October 1943) is an Iranian politician who served as the fifth president of Iran from 3 August 1997 to 3 August 2005. He also served as Iran's Minister of Culture from 1982 t ...

, Iran's next president were also disqualified to run.

Results

;Baktiari (1996) The table below only includes seats decided in the first round of voting: ;Nohlen et al. (2001) ;Rakel (2008) According to Eva Rakel, the radical left faction gained 79 out of 270 parliamentary seats. ;Alem (2011) ;Inter-Parliamentary Union According to

Inter-Parliamentary Union The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU; french: Union Interparlementaire, UIP) is an international organization of national parliaments. Its primary purpose is to promote democratic governance, accountability, and cooperation among its members; other ...

, some three-fourths of the seats were controlled by the

, who secured 134 seats in the first round.

References

{{Iranian elections 1992 elections in Iran April 1992 events in Asia May 1992 events in Asia Islamic Consultative Assembly elections