Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic Ayatollah Ali Khamenei delivers a speech after casting his vote, urging people to vote and “disappoint the advocates of evil.”credit: GT
Khamenei cast his vote in front of a crowd of journalists in Tehran, his left hand trembling slightly as he took his ballot from his right, having been paralyzed since the 1981 bombing. State television showed a nearby woman crying as she filmed Khamenei with her mobile phone.
He urged people to vote in his brief remarks.
He said: “Pay attention to this, please your friends, and disappoint the hypocrites.”
Khamenei's protege, hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, echoed that call and urged the public to make this a “glorious day for the Iranian nation.”
But turnout appeared low in Tehran, where state-owned polling station ISPA estimated turnout at 23.5%. ISPA did not release election data ahead of the vote until Thursday, which is highly unusual as its numbers are usually released much earlier.
download
The ISPA poll, which was based on a survey of 5,121 voting-age people, predicted a turnout of 38.5% nationally. She said that the margin of error in the poll was 2%.
This could put turnout on track to be an all-time low. The previous lowest level came in the last parliamentary elections in 2020, which witnessed a participation rate of 42%.
Boycott calls have put the government under renewed pressure – since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran's theocracy has based its legitimacy partly on electoral turnout.
In one of the polling stations on Friday in Tehran, a young woman entered without a hijab and her mother was wearing a hijab. There was no comment from officials or police on hand.
The daughter, who gave her first name, Zahra, said: “I accompanied my mother who wanted to vote just to remind the authorities of the crackdown that took place last year.” She said that her mother voted for a relatively moderate candidate in their area, while Zahra refused to cast her ballot.
Meanwhile, a heavy security presence could be seen across the capital, with regular police officers and riot police officers appearing in main squares and road intersections. About 200,000 security forces were deployed across the country with more than 59,000 polling stations opened. It is reported that another million people are running in the elections, in a country of about 85 million people.
It is estimated that the population of voting age is 61 million.
The parliament's term lasts for four years, and five seats are allocated to religious minorities in Iran. By law, Parliament supervises the executive, votes on treaties and deals with other issues. In practice, absolute power in Iran rests with the Supreme Leader.
Hardliners have controlled Parliament for the past two decades – and chants of “Death to America” were often heard from the chamber.
Under Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guard general who supported a violent crackdown on Iranian university students in 1999, the legislature pushed forward a bill in 2020 that greatly reduced Tehran's cooperation with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency. . an agency.
download
This followed the US withdrawal by then US President Donald Trump from the Iran nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 – an action that sparked years of tensions in the Middle East and saw Iran enrich enough uranium to record purity to obtain enough of fuel to produce nuclear fuel. Several nuclear weapons if she so chooses.
More recently, Parliament has focused on issues surrounding mandatory head covering, or hijab, for women in Iran after the death of 22-year-old Amini in police custody in 2022, sparking nationwide protests.
The protests quickly escalated into calls for the overthrow of Iran's religious rulers. A subsequent security campaign led to the killing of more than 500 people and the arrest of more than 22,000.
The authorities extended the voting time by six hours and closed the polls at midnight local time (2030 GMT). Preliminary election results are expected to appear on Saturday.
Get a direct note from our foreigners Reporters About what's making headlines around the world. Subscribe to our weekly “What in the World” newsletter..
