A study of Seats's distribution of Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) in Iran

An election is a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual to hold elected status. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative democracy has operated since the 17th century. Elections may fill offices in the legislature, sometimes in the executive and judiciary, and for regional and local government. This process is also used in many other private and business organizations, from clubs to voluntary associations and corporations. The universal use of elections as a tool for selecting representatives in modern democracies is in contrast with the practice in the democratic archetype, ancient Athens. As the Elections were considered an oligarchic institution and most political offices were filled using sortation, also known as allotment, by which officeholders were chosen by lot. In many countries with weak rule of law, the most common reason why elections do not meet international standards of being "free and fair" is interference from the incumbent government.In democratic systems, the citizens impact on governmental decisions, Legislations, their own destiny, and the actions that should be done in their community by selected institutions through direct and indirect methods like as election, electoral process, decision and decision-making. Legislative assembly is one of the basic institutes to reach these goals that are established in almost all countries until representative who are elected by the people to advance the goals of the community by attend and pass legislation. The main task of this institute that its representatives choose through direct vote of the citizens is to approval fair social, political, economic, and cultural legislation in the state.Election, electoral process, decision making and decision reasoning by selected institution are the principles of development and evolution of most. In countries with diverse religious, ethnics, and linguistics, like Iran, electoral process, should gain a high interest. In Iran, Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) is known as symbol of presence of all trends and sites. Therefore, this research is going to answer to these questions: 1- Is there any equal opportunities to succeed to seats of Majlis for all people according to population distribution and extent of their territories? 2- If not, what are the main causes? This study has done based on descriptive – analytic method and in order to achieve the research objectives have used different methods of library, attributive and Arc GIS 9.2 and Excel softwares with emphasis on 2006 census results and statistics of Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) in Iran. Also to answer the research questions have used from qualitative and quantitative methods of analysis, individually or in combination. In order to analyze how seats distribution of Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) in Iran at the provincial level, being used factors such as population, the number of constituencies, the number of representative, extent, the representative to population ratio, the extent of territory to representative ratio, and the average distance (Statistics of the ninth parliament elections in 2011 have been reviewed). Also, in order to illustrate the clearer gap between provinces and how close or far away from the desired position, the constituencies Categorized in the five spectra like as very good, good, average, poor and very poor access to seats of assembly according to its population and extent. The results of this research shows that Seats distribution of Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) in Iran doesn’t have a balanced distribution. So that some provinces have more representatives than others. Also the results shows the justice has not been met between the provinces. Such that Semnan province per 147,435 people, Sistan and Baluchestan province per 300,717 people, Tehran province per 318,085 people, Alborz province per 763,125 people has a representatives in Majlis of Iran and others provinces have a distance from law to high from the well. This problem has a negative impact on the Integration and national Solidarity of Iran in long term. The main causes of inequality access to the seats of Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) in Iran, including, for example: Pattern of government of Iran; administrative divisions; Political consideration in the number of representatives for each province; Lack of scientific processes and accurate in how to determine of the election area and the number of representatives; Human and natural cohesion or disconnection and its impact on the delimitation of electoral area; amount of proximity and active connection with capital and center of country and located on active transport links; Lack of awareness of citizens, especially, the citizens of more deprived area from the number of representatives in the assembly than other provinces and its average level in the national; the lack of clear rules and criteria about the election and the number of representatives. The results show that the citizens who vote to the assembly of representative have not had equal access to seats of assembly and values of votes were different among provinces in this election, such that there is a representative in the assembly for every 147435, 300717, 318085, 763125 people in the provinces of Semnan, Sistan and Baluchestan, Tehran, and Alborz, respectively. The other provinces also have a low to high distance to the optimal rate. The distributions of seats Majlis do not follow any order or pattern; so that the value of each vote for the Semnan province is twice of Sistan and Baluchistan province and fivefold of Alborz province. Actually, Results show there is no equal opportunities to access to seats of Majlis according to extent and distribution of population and there is a high distinction among provinces. Values of votes were different among provinces and finally we have recognized that the agent of administrative divisions is the most important and intensive factor in biased distributions of seats Majlis.