DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 1 Mar: Iran on Friday held the country\u2019s first parliamentary election since the mass 2022 protests over mandatory hijab laws after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, with questions looming over just how many people will turn out at the polls.
\nIranian officials and even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei have urged the public to cast ballots, but polling stations in the country\u2019s capital, Tehran, appeared to see few voters.
\nAuthorities have largely barred politicians calling for any change within the country\u2019s theocracy, known broadly as reformists, from running in the election \u2014 leaving mostly only a broad slate of conservative or hard-line figures.
\nIran\u2019s economy continues to stagnate under Western sanctions over Tehran\u2019s rapidly advancing nuclear program and the country\u2019s arming of militia proxies in the Middle East and Russia in its war on Ukraine.
\nSome of the voters acknowledged the challenges facing the Islamic Republic.
\n\u201cThere are many problems; too many problems,\u201d said one voter, who just gave her last name, Sajjad. \u201cWe are sad, we are sorrowful and we voice our criticism as much as we can. God willing, those responsible (will) start thinking about us, and probably many of them do care.\u201d
\nKhamenei, 84, cast one of the first votes in an election that also will see new members elected to the country\u2019s Assembly of Experts. The panel of clerics, who serve an eight-year term, is mandated to select a new supreme leader if Khamenei steps down or dies, underscoring the panel\u2019s increased importance, given Khamenei\u2019s age.
\nKhamenei voted before a crowd of journalists in Tehran, his left hand slightly shaking as he took his ballot from his right, paralyzed since a 1981 bombing. State television showed one woman nearby weeping as she filmed Khamenei with her mobile phone.
\nHe urged people to vote as soon as possible in the election, saying that both Iran\u2019s friends and enemies were watching the turnout.
\n\u201cPay attention to this, make friends happy and disappoint the evil-wishers,\u201d he said in brief remarks by the ballot boxes.
\nKhamenei\u2019s prot\u00e9g\u00e9, hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi, repeated that call and urged the public to make \u201ca glorious day for the Iranian nation.\u201d AP<\/p>\n
Some 15,000 candidates are vying for a seat in the 290-member parliament, formally known as the Islamic Consultative Assembly. Out of them, only 116 are considered as relatively moderate or pro-reform candidates. Those demanding radical changes are banned or didn\u2019t bother to register given widespread disqualifications by authorities.
\nParliament terms run for four years, and five seats are reserved for Iran\u2019s religious minorities.
\nUnder the law, the parliament has oversight over the executive branch, votes on treaties and handles other issues. In practice, absolute power in Iran rests with its supreme leader.
\nHard-liners have controlled the parliament for the past two decades \u2014 with chants of \u201cDeath to America\u201d often heard from the floor.
\nUnder 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 curtailed Tehran\u2019s cooperation with the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency.
\nThat followed then-President Donald Trump\u2019s unilateral withdrawal of America from Iran\u2019s nuclear deal with world powers in 2018 \u2014 an act that sparked years of tensions in the Middle East and saw Iran enrich enough uranium at record-breaking purity to have enough fuel for \u201cseveral\u201d nuclear weapons if it chose.
\nMore recently, the parliament has focused on issues surrounding Iran\u2019s mandatory head covering, or hijab, for women after the 2022 death of 22-year-old Amini in police custody, which sparked nationwide protests.
\nThe protests quickly escalated into calls to overthrow Iran\u2019s clerical rulers. A subsequent security crackdown killed over 500 people, with more than 22,000 detained.
\nCalls for an election boycott have spread in recent weeks, including from imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, a women\u2019s right activist, who called them a \u201csham.\u201d
\nThe boycott calls have put the government under renewed pressure \u2014 since its 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran\u2019s theocracy has based its legitimacy in part on turnout in elections.
\nThe state-owned polling center ISPA hadn\u2019t put out election data prior to the vote until Thursday, something highly unusual as their figures typically get released much earlier. Its polling, based on a survey of 5,121 voting-age people, predicted a turnout of 23.5% in the capital, Tehran, and 38.5% nationally. It said the margin of error in the poll was 2%.
\nIranian state television showed crowded polling stations but elsewhere, there appeared to be few voters braving the freezing temperatures in Tehran.
\nIn one place, a young woman without a hijab and her mother, wearing one, entered teh polling station together. There was no comment from officials or police on hand.
\n\u201cI accompanied my mother who wanted to vote just to remind authorities about last year\u2019s crackdown,\u201d said the daughter, who gave her first name, Zohreh. Her mother voted for a relative moderate running in their district, while Zohreh declined to cast a ballot, she said.
\nMeanwhile, a heavy security presence could be seen across the capital, with ordinary and anti-riot police officers visible in main squares and junctions. Some 200,000 security forces have been deployed across the country as over 59,000 polling stations opened. Another 1 million people reportedly are running the election, home to some 85 million people.
\nEstimates put the voting-age population at 61 million.
\nPolling places will be open until 6 p.m. local time (1430 GMT), though Iran typically extends voting at the last minute. Initial election results are expected as early as Saturday. AP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, 1 Mar: Iran on Friday held the country\u2019s first parliamentary election since the mass 2022 protests over mandatory hijab laws after the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, with questions looming over just how many people will turn out at the polls. Iranian officials and even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-235996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235996\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}