Saturday February 22, 2020
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A new parliament is elected in Iran, but almost all candidates are hardliners. Accordingly, the first projections predict a defeat for the reform camp around President Ruhani. But the voters still gave the regime a memo: they didn’t vote.
According to the first counts, the conservatives are in the lead in the parliamentary election in Iran. According to an unofficial count published by the Fars news agency, the winners of 183 of the 290 parliamentary seats were already determined. Accordingly, 135 seats go to conservative candidates, 20 to reformers and 28 to independent candidates. In the Tehran constituency, which has 30 MPs, conservative and ultra-conservative candidates had a clear lead over moderate candidates, according to the national election commission.
By Saturday afternoon, 71 of the 208 constituencies across the country had been counted, according to the election commission. There is a clear head start for the conservatives, said election commission spokesman Esmail Mousavi. Most of the votes thus went to the former police chief and revolution guard Mohammed Bagher Ghalibaf. According to the spokesman, the final results for Tehran as well as for the rest of the country should be available no later than Sunday morning.
Many of the originally around 16,000 candidates had been excluded from the election in advance by the conservative Guardian Council. The reformers around President Ruhani in particular had extremely bad cards in the election: almost 75 percent of their candidates were rejected by the Guardian Council, which, under the constitution, monitors the candidates’ ideological stability. The Guardian Council is not a democratically elected body and its criteria are highly controversial. The reformers hope that they can win at least 50 of the 290 parliamentary seats in order not to be cut off entirely from the legislation.
Trump’s tough course weakened reformers
In addition to the Guardian Council, the policies of US President Donald Trump also gave the hardliners a tailwind. Trump’s one-sided exit from the Vienna nuclear deal and his draconian economic sanctions weakened Ruhani and the entire reform camp. According to observers, the US President has become a kind of ally for the conservatives, and especially the hardliners, who immediately opposed the nuclear deal and Iran’s rapprochement with the West.
However, voter turnout could become critical for the entire political leadership. The regime set a bar between 55 and 60 percent for voter turnout. Only a high level of participation can be seen as evidence of popular support for the Islamic regime. Although official figures are not yet available, informed sources speak of a turnout of 42 percent nationwide and only 27 percent in Tehran.
To get to parliament in the first round, the candidates need at least 20 percent of the votes cast in their constituencies. Otherwise, they will have to participate in a runoff election that is scheduled for mid-April. A simple majority will also suffice. The new parliament will start work at the end of May.
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