Iran: low turnout for the country’s legislative elections

Iran’s parliament vote, the first since mass protests in 2022, sees low turnout despite government pressure.

Iran held its first legislative elections on Friday since massive 2022 protests against compulsory hijab laws following the death of Mahsa Amini. The legislative election apparently recorded a low participation rate, and there were calls for a boycott.

It is not yet clear whether voter apathy or a desire to send a message to the Iranian theocracy caused the number of voters to drop at polling stations in the Islamic Republic. While state-controlled television broadcast images of lines of voters, others in the capital Tehran saw largely empty polling stations.

Officials including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have sought to draw a direct link between turnout and stance against Iran’s enemies. Others, including imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, called for a boycott of a vote they called a “sham.”

Authorities have largely barred politicians calling for change in the country’s government, known as reformists, from running for office.

Of the approximately 15,000 candidates vying for seats in the 290-member parliament, officially known as the Islamic Consultative Assembly, only 116 are considered relatively moderate or pro-reform candidates.

Meanwhile, Iran’s economy continues to stagnate under Western sanctions imposed on Tehran over its rapid advancement of its nuclear program and the country’s arming of proxy militias in the Middle East and the Russia in its war against Ukraine.

Some voters recognized the challenges facing the Islamic Republic.

“There are a lot of problems, too many problems,” said a voter who gave only her last name, Sajjad. “We are sad, we are sad and we express our criticism as much as we can. God willing, those in charge will start thinking about us, and it’s likely that many of them will care.”

The government is putting pressure

Mr. Khamenei, 84, was one of the first to vote in an election that will also choose new members of the country’s Assembly of Experts. This group of clerics, whose term is eight years, is responsible for choosing a new supreme leader if Mr. Khamenei steps down or dies, underscoring its increased importance, given Mr. Khamenei’s age.

Mr. Khamenei cast his vote in front of a crowd of journalists in Tehran, his left hand shaking slightly as he took his ballot from his right hand, paralyzed since a bombing in 1981. State television showed a woman who cried while filming Mr. Khamenei with her cell phone.

In his brief speech, he urged people to vote.

“Pay attention to this, make your friends happy and disappoint evil spirits” he said. Mr. Khamenei’s protégé, hard-liner President Ebrahim Raisi, repeated the call and urged the public to make this vote “a glorious day for the Iranian nation”.

A participation rate at half mast

However, turnout appeared low in Tehran, where public voting center ISPA had estimated turnout at 23.5%. ISPA had not released election data ahead of the vote until Thursday, which is very unusual as its figures are usually released much earlier.

The ISPA poll, based on a survey of 5,121 people of voting age, predicted a turnout rate of 38.5% nationally. The poll’s margin of error is 2%.

The participation rate could therefore be the lowest ever recorded. The lowest rate was recorded during the last legislative elections in 2019, with a participation rate of 42%.

Calls for a boycott have increased pressure on the government: since the Islamic revolution of 1979, the Iranian theocracy has based its legitimacy partly on the participation rate in elections.

At a polling station Friday in Tehran, a young woman without a hijab and her mother, who was wearing one, entered. No comments were made by the authorities or police present on site.

“I accompanied my mother who wanted to vote to remind the authorities of last year’s repression.”, said the girl, who gave her first name, Zohreh. Her mother voted for a moderate relative running in their district, while Zohreh refused to vote.

Meanwhile, a heavy security presence was visible in the capital, with ordinary and riot police in main squares and intersections. Some 200,000 security forces were deployed across the country, while more than 59,000 polling stations opened. An additional million people would participate in the elections, in a country of some 85 million inhabitants. There are an estimated 61 million people of voting age.

Five-year terms

Parliamentary terms are four years and five seats are reserved for Iran’s religious minorities. Under the law, parliament controls the executive branch, votes on treaties, and deals with other matters. In practice, absolute power in Iran is held by the supreme leader.

Hardliners have controlled parliament for the past two decades, and chants “Death to America” have often been heard in the hemicycle.

Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guard general who supported the violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999, the legislature advanced a bill in 2020 that significantly reduced cooperation from Tehran with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations nuclear watchdog.

This followed then-US President Donald Trump’s unilateral withdrawal of America from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 – an act that sparked years of tensions in the Middle East and saw Iran will enrich enough uranium to record purity to have enough fuel for “several” nuclear weapons if it wanted.

More recently, Parliament has focused on issues surrounding the compulsory wearing of the veil, or hijab, by Iranian women after the death of Masha Amini, 22, in police custody sparked protests across the country .

These protests quickly turned into calls to overthrow Iran’s religious leaders. The ensuing repression left more than 500 dead and more than 22,000 people arrested.

Polling stations remained open until 10 p.m. local time (1830 GMT), as authorities extended voting by four hours. The first election results are expected on Saturday.