Pro-regime candidates once again won the legislative elections in Iran, winning some 200 seats out of 290. But the participation rate (41%) fell compared to the last elections.
Unsurprisingly, the theocratic regime in Tehran has managed to maintain its hold on the Iranian parliament. The results of the legislative elections were published this Monday: of the 290 seats to be filled, pro-regime candidates won 200 in the first round, Interior Ministry spokesperson Mohsen Eslami said.
Some 45 new deputies, relatively moderate, conservative or independent, were also elected. At this stage there remain 45 constituencies for which a second round will be necessary. It will take place in April or May.
Among the seats won, only eleven will be occupied by women.
These elections will once again have been marked by the total control of the electoral process by the regime.
Authorities have largely barred politicians calling for change in the country’s government, generally described as reformists, from running for office. Those demanding radical reforms were also not allowed to run or did not bother to run.
Low participation rate
While praising the Iranians for resisting “bad weather and the enemy’s continued propaganda”, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said the vote had recorded 25 million votes, a turnout of just under 41%. The previous lowest occurred during the last parliamentary elections in 2020, which saw a turnout of 42%.
No one knows to what extent the participation rate was impacted by voter apathy after two years of violence against the unprecedented protest movement which shook the country after the death of the young Mahsa Amini.
The only certainty was that activists had multiplied the calls for boycottnotably the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, currently imprisoned.
“Friday’s elections appear to have reaffirmed thatIranian policy will not change in the near future__, but the vote demonstrated that the Iranian public is largely dissatisfied with the direction taken by the Islamic Republic”, the New York-based think tank Soufan Center said Monday.
Iranians also voted Friday to elect members of the country’s 88-seat Assembly of Experts who will serve eight-year terms on a committee that will appoint the country’s next supreme leader after Ali Khamenei, 84 years old.
Ebrahim Raïssi, a protégé of Khamenei who has been mentioned as a possible successor to the supreme leader, again won a seat. Another possible successor is Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, who does not hold any government position.