Iran’s leaders call for big election turnout amid discontent
▶ Elections will be the first since the months-long protests caused by death of Mahsa Amini
Iranians will vote in a parliamentary election on Friday seen as a critical test of the clerical establishment’s popularity, amid growing discontent over economic, political and social strains.
According to a recent Gallup poll, more than half of Iranians currently disapprove of their country’s leadership.
Iran’s clerical rulers are seeking a big turnout to shore up their legitimacy, which was damaged by months of mass protests started by the death of a young woman in morality police custody in 2022.
On the same day as the vote for members of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, Iran holds elections to pick 88 members of a powerful clerical body known as the Assembly of Experts. This is tasked with appointing or dismissing the supreme leader.
A record number of more than 15,000 candidates for the 290-strong parliament survived screening by the Guardian Council, according to the Interior Ministry.
The council is a hardline body of clerics and jurists who assess candidates’ belief in the system of religious law in Iran, known as Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist, established in the 1979 revolution that ousted the western-backed Shah.
The conservative watchdog body has qualified 144 clerics from 510 hopefuls to stand in the Assembly of Experts vote.
A current member of the elite body who was seen by many as a reformist, former president Hassan Rouhani, was barred from entering the race.
Iran lacks a tradition of disciplined party membership or detailed party platforms, and politics runs along factional lines.
Reformists, who were banished from the political mainstream after disputing the re-election of a hardline president in 2009, have backed no list of candidates in the contest for parliament. Pro-reform candidates faced mass disqualification in the 2020 vote.
The biggest hardline group, comprising former members of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij militia, plus other loyalists of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is expected to maintain its dominance in parliament.
Iranians will cast their ballots in key elections on Friday, with conservatives expected to tighten their grip on power in the absence of any meaningful political opposition.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei will be the first to cast his ballot at 8am local time at one of the 59,000 polling stations across the country.
Mr Khamenei said every Iranian should vote and called on “influential personalities” to encourage people to head to polling stations.
“The more fervent the elections, the more national authority and national security will be secured,” he said.
The elections are being held against the backdrop of soaring tension in the Middle East, with Israel fighting Iranbacked Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza following the October 7 attack.
Iran’s economy is also reeling under US sanctions imposed over its nuclear programme.
The country’s parliament comprises a 290-seat Islamic Consultative Assembly and an 88-seat Assembly of Experts.
The Islamic Consultative Assembly is responsible for drafting legislation, ratifying international treaties and approving the annual budget while the 88-member Assembly of Experts is a powerful clerical body that appoints or dismisses the supreme leader.
Mr Khamenei, who turns 85 next month, has held the post of supreme leader since 1989.
Although the Assembly of Experts largely follows the supreme leader’s guidance and rubber stamps his orders, it also has the power to dismiss him if he is unable to perform his constitutional duties or if it decides he should not have initially qualified for the role.
A total of 144 candidates have been approved to run for seats in the Assembly of Experts, for an eight-year term. Former president Hassan Rouhani said that he was barred from seeking re-election to the assembly after 24 years of membership.
He said the election “should be a protest vote” for those who are opposed to “current conditions and seek transformation”.
More than 61 million of Iran’s 85 million population are eligible to vote. But a poll by state television found that more than half of respondents were indifferent to the elections.
The current parliament elected in 2020 had a turnout of 42.57 per cent – the lowest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
In Tehran, where less than a fifth of the electorate voted in 2020, banners have been less prevalent than in previous elections. Analysts expect the elections to be dominated by conservative and ultra-conservative candidates, mirroring the make-up of the current parliament.
Aspiring candidates had to be vetted and jurists in charge of the process approved only 15,200 applicants for the parliamentary elections – less than a third of the 49,000 who registered, the Iranian government said.
For the Assembly of Experts, 144 candidates were approved.
Iran’s constitution requires that five seats in parliament should be reserved for religious minorities.
Two seats are set aside for Armenian Christians while one each is reserved for Assyrian and Chaldean Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians.
Some government critics plan to boycott the elections.
The Reform Front said it would not take part in “meaningless, non-competitive, and ineffective elections”.
The elections will be the first since months-long protests caused by the 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody of the morality police.
The more fervent the elections, the more national authority and national security will be secured
AYATOLLAH ALI KHAMENEI Iranian supreme leader