The polling stations in Iran were open longer, but it didn’t help: never before have so few people taken part in the elections in the Islamic Republic as this time. This is a serious defeat for the regime.
Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Wahidi has confirmed a historically low turnout in last Friday’s elections. A total of around 25 of the 61 million eligible voters went to vote, Wahidi told journalists. The minister confirmed reports from pro-government media from the weekend that voter turnout was around 41 percent. The number of invalid votes was almost eight percent. The numbers cannot be independently verified.
Foreign journalists and observers speak of an election show. Opposition members in exile had called for a boycott. In addition to the composition of parliament, the vote also decided on new members of the so-called Council of Experts, which decides on his successor in the event of the death or resignation of the 84-year-old spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Low voter turnout is a defeat for the government
These were the first elections after the women-led protests in autumn 2022. Many people are disillusioned after the failed reform attempts of the past decades. They apparently stayed away from the votes in protest. In 2020, turnout in the parliamentary election was 42.6 percent.
The low voter turnout is a serious setback for the government in Tehran. She had relied on a high number of voters – as proof of her own legitimacy. Religious leader Khamenei himself had declared voting to be a religious duty. The polling stations were also open several hours longer than planned – apparently without the effect the government had hoped for.
Hardliners are apparently gaining ground
290 seats in parliament were up for election. More than 245 of them were decided in the first round, according to Mohsen Eslami, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry. The remaining 45 seats should be decided in runoff elections in April or May. This applied to cases in which the first-place candidates did not achieve at least 20 percent of the vote.
According to an analysis by the AP news agency, of the 245 elected representatives, 200 were supported by hardliner groups. 45 of the election winners were considered comparatively moderate, conservative or independent.
The current parliament includes 18 reform-oriented politicians and 38 others who are considered independent. Only eleven women won a seat in parliament. There are currently 16 women working as MPs there. Authorities largely barred politicians calling for change within the country’s theocracy from participating in the elections.