7Berkeh: The rise of Hossein Hosseinzadeh in less than 10 days from square one (actually from not having any concrete plans for a real campaign) to gaining victory in parliamentary elections is nothing less than a Hollywood movie.
Hossein Hosseinzadeh, the young independent candidate from Gerash, was waging an impossible war with two powerful competitors in the 11th parliamentary elections in the constituency of Larestan, Khonj, Gerash and Avaz: Ala-eddin Boroujerdi and Jamshid Jafarpour. Boroujerdi, now 20 years in Parliament, is a permanent member and former head of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of the Parliament. Jafarpour, currently serving his second term as MP of this constituency, is the head of the Culture Commission. Along with these two powerful politicians, Hosseinzadeh had to compete with Yousef Mohebbi, another former MP, and Mansour Mohtaji, the former governor of Lar, and of course, his competitors in Gerash.
The unlikelihood of this historical and fiction-like victory was heightened by the fact that Hosseinzadeh did not have more than 10 days to start off a campaign. While his opponents were running their campaigns full speed, Hosseinzadeh needed to wait for his verification from the Guardian Council. And when this finally came, he first had to think about his opponents in Gerash. There were at least four of them: Hossein Hosseinshiri who, referring to his previous political career, believed he had the upper hand in the elections; Hossein Faghihi, Naser Delkhosh and Daryush Sepadeh. The odds were against the young candidate who had to rely on his high position as a top manager in the Ministry of Oil.
He only gained one head start, which ultimately proved to be his life-saving, winning card: he became the sole candidate of Gerash. This became possible when he came out as a winner from an electoral system designed and run by a group of ten young people (hence called “The Group of Ten”) and The Youth Community of Gerash only one week before the elections. The coalition of the candidates of Gerash sent a powerful message to the region which brought back a wave of admiration and turned the table. Thanks to this chain of events, on the election day on Februray 21, 2020, Hosseinzadeh gained more than 28 thousand votes (around 30 percent of the total votes), beating Boroujerdi and Jafarpour who had gained around 22 and 20 thousand votes respectively.
Some words and expressions in this news story:
parliamentary elections: انتخابات مجلس
constituency: حوزه انتخابیه
National Security and Foreign Policy Commission: کمیسیون امنیت ملی و سیاست خارجی
MP (Member of Parliament): نماینده مجلس
Guardian Council: شورای نگهبان
Ministry of Oil: وزارت نفت
electoral system: سیستم انتخاباتی
The Youth Community of Gerash: جمعیت جوانان گراش
coalition: اجماع، ائتلاف
