Iran counts ballots in vote seen favouring conservatives



TEHRAN: Iran started counting ballots on Saturday after a vote for parliament and a key clerical physique, with native media estimating a low turnout and conservatives anticipated to dominate.
Friday’s elections have been the primary since widespread protests triggered by the September 2022 demise in police custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian Kurd. She had been arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic’s strict costume code for ladies.
Iran has additionally been badly affected by worldwide sanctions which have led to an financial disaster because the final elections in 2020.
State TV reported early Saturday the “begin of vote counting” after polling stations closed at midnight. Voting hours had been prolonged a number of occasions through the day, the official IRNA information company reported.
A file determine of 15,200 hopefuls have been competing for seats within the 290-member parliament. One other 144 candidates sought a spot within the 88-member Meeting of Consultants, which is completely made up of male Islamic students.
The Meeting selects or, if obligatory, dismisses Iran’s supreme chief. Many potential candidates for the chamber have been disqualified.
Native Fars information company estimated turnout at “greater than 40 p.c”, amongst 61 million eligible voters.
President Ebrahim Raisi welcomed the voters’ “enthusiastic” participation as “one other historic failure to (Iran’s) enemies,” in response to IRNA.
Iran considers the USA, its Western allies and Israel enemies of the state and accuses them of searching for to intervene in its inside affairs.
Reformist every day Ham Mihan ran an opinion piece titled “The Silent Majority”, which stated turnout was “estimated to be decrease than” in earlier elections.
Iran’s 2020 parliament was elected through the Covid pandemic with a turnout of 42.57 p.c — the bottom because the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
A state TV ballot had discovered greater than half of respondents have been detached about this 12 months’s elections.
Candidates for parliament are vetted by a physique, the Guardian Council, whose members are decided by the supreme chief.
The current parliament is dominated by conservatives and ultra-conservatives, and analysts anticipated an identical make-up within the new meeting.
Regardless of Supreme chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei‘s attraction for folks to solid ballots, many Iranians have been cut up on whether or not or not to take action.
Former reformist president Mohammad Khatami was amongst individuals who averted the ballot, in response to a coalition of events referred to as the Reform Entrance.
In February the conservative Javan every day quoted Khatami as saying Iran is “very removed from free and aggressive elections.”





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