City Council to Vote for Tehran Mayor

Barring unforeseen circumstances, the denizens of the capital will find out who will take the reins at Tehran Municipality for the next four years.

The final four candidates—Mohammad Ali Najafi, Hossein Marashi, Elaheh Koulaei, and Mohsen Mehralizadeh—were scheduled to present their plans to manage the metropolis of 12 million people on Wednesday.

The Tehran City Council will deliberate and elect the mayor today.

Traditionally, the mayor is chosen during the first session of a new city council, but this time the process started early to give the mayor-elect sufficient time to pick his deputies by the time the council holds its first meeting on Sept. 3, according to local news outlets.

While the majority of the candidates are experienced politicians, not one of them has held a municipal post or has a degree relevant to urban development and management.

Needless to say, the new mayor has a gargantuan task ahead as he/she will inherit a 12-year-old mess from the controversial outgoing mayor, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf. Intimate knowledge of and expertise in urban planning, environment and development is critical to make life livable in the sprawling metropolis whose frontiers have been expanding in all four directions at terrible speed.

Ending urban decay, expansion of the ageing public transportation networks  (subway system and Bus Rapid Transit), tackling air pollution, reducing the number of residential and commercial towers popping up in tiny lanes across the capital, fighting corruption in the 22 mayoral districts, closer oversight of multi-million-dollar contracts to the army of companies working for the municipality and finding a solution to the increasing number of beggars/vagrants on the streets and junkies in the working class districts must top the new mayor’s agenda.