Could Iran Elect First Female President?

by Shahrazad (Iran)

By appointing Mrs Ebtekar as the first female Vice President of Iran and the head of Environment Protection Organization during the former reformist administration, Presidnet Khatami broke the taboo which afterward even a conservative president like Ahmadinejad followed his way by once again appointing a woman for the position.

It’s the utmost position an Iranian woman could occupy. Nevertheless, for some certain cultural reasons, Iranian women could not get the position they deserve and usually hid behind the male political figues. For example none of those presidents cross the idea of choosing women as minister.

Since 1963, long time before any other countries in the ME, Iranian women were allowed to vote and participate in Parliment election afterward.
Since then there’ve been always female members in the Iranian Parliment before and after revolution and they’ve had very strong effect on approving or debating noteworthy bills such as Family Protection Law which gave women many basic rights such as custody of children in some cases of divorce.

Now the big question: Is it the time for Iranian women to enter the presidential election?
I’d like to know your answer, since i assume Iranian women will be very influential in this coming election on June 2009, not just as prominent supporters of the male candidates but also as female candidate hoping for presidency.
The other day i read that Kamran Daneshjoo, the head of Iran’s election committee told reporters on Sunday that Of the 475 who signed up as candidates, 42 are women.

It’s not the first time that women sign up as candidates for presidency. But it’s the first time that there are women who are somehow qualified to be a presidential candidate based on the Iranian law:

A former member of Iran’s 290-seat parliament, Rafat Bayat is considered the most prominent female figure to register for the elections, scheduled for June 12.
The Sociologist, whose last bid for presidency was rejected four years ago, has announced that if elected, her first deputy will be a woman.

After registering at the Interior Ministry on Saturday, Bayat criticized the Ahmadinejad administration for missing so many ‘golden opportunities’, a reference to the government’s failure to take advantage of skyrocketing oil prices last year. Source

Under the Islamic Republic constitution, candidates for the presidency should be among “rejal”, a word meaning ‘men’ in Arabic but translates into a general meaning as renowned political figures in Persian:

The word has caused controversy in the past, with some interpretations claiming that the constitution bars women from running for president.
However, Iran’s constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, declared in April that there is no restriction on women standing in this year’s presidential elections.
“The council has never put an interpretation on the word ‘rejal’,” Abbas-Ali Kadkodaye, a spokesman for the Guardians Council said. Source

A friend of mine asked me what a female president could mean for Iran. I do not know really what to say. As i pointed above, there are some certain cultural issues in the Middle East that women face them in their daily affairs as to crossing the male-female borders.

Female engineers in Iran yet have problem to deal with the male laborers or being manager of a big male group. Most of them usually prefer to work as clerks instead of working directly in factories.

Though Iranian society has many different and complicated layers and that’s why nobody can exactly predict what could a female president mean for Iranians.

Would Iranians vote for a female presidential candidate even if they know she is most qualified for the position?

Rafat Bayat might not get my vote, just because i assume we have many figures -male or female- who are much more capable and qualified than her when it comes to politics.
I am not also sure about complicated society of Iran being ready to accept the idea of a female president while there are more famous candidates in the coming election. But for now, it’s a good step yet to break another taboo.