The turnout in Iran’s parliamentary elections appears to have dropped to 41%, a record low, but according to the official figures not quite to the levels of untenable mass abstention that some previous surveys had predicted.
Polls closed at midnight on Friday, six hours later than planned due to what officials claimed was a second surge in polls in the evening, but in the capital Tehran’s middle class stayed away, with fewer than 24% of the 8 million eligible to vote bothering to do so.
Overall, the turnout and result could leave conservatives firmly in charge and free to pursue their economic and foreign policies, but they may be weakened by internal factionalism now that reformists have largely been purged. It is possible some relatively unknown candidates opposed to the status quo have been elected in the provinces, where hundreds of novice candidates were permitted to stand.
Divisions between fundamentalist factions led them to putting up four different slates, instead of a single slate as four years ago, meaning that it is likely many in the top 30 in Tehran will not have received the 20% of those voting required to avoid a second round of elections.
Parliament’s speaker, Mohammed Baqer Qalibaf, suffered a severe rebuff, falling to fourth place on the Tehran list, as his vote collapse to 94,000.
The elections covered both the 290 seats seats in a four-year term parliament and for the eight-year terms for the 88 seat Assembly of Experts, the body that is likely to elect Iran’s supreme leader.
In Tehran the candidate with the highest votes for the assembly received only 326,000 votes, yet there are 8 million registered voters in Tehran.
Key figures that challenged the political direction of the current leadership, not just reformists but centrists such as the former president Hassan Rouhani, were blocked from standing, but given no explanation.
Mohammad Khatami, Iran’s first reformist president, was among critics who did not vote on Friday, despite initial false reports that he had. It is the first time he has stayed away and his decision is seen as a game-changer for reformists that have long debated the value of participating in an electoral process that many see as window-dressing designed to disguise where the true levers of power lie.
The imprisoned Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, a women’s rights advocate, in a statement shared by her family with Reuters, called the election a “sham”.
Mahmoud Sadeghi, an MP up until 2020, on social mediacalled the decrease in participation in the elections “a big warning to the government and the ruling faction. Instead of denying the reality and falsely claiming victory, take this warning seriously and submit to structural reforms to make the elections meaningful”.
He wrote that “in the previous election, when 42.5% participation was announced, they said it was because of Corona, now reaching below this quorum is a victory for them!”
The polls were especially significant given they were the first since the regime crushed the ”Women, Life, Freedom” protest movement.
The final official turnout figure will be given later, and critics say is open to distortion since voters that went to the polls to spoil the ballot paper are also included.
But some Iranian papers welcomed what they saw as a high turnout. Hamshahri newspaper, referring to the 25 million that did vote, said it was a slap to America: “The participation of more than 41% of the people in the elections foiled the plans of the enemies. The biggest election boycott campaign in the last 45 years failed.”
Nevertheless, this turnout in the parliamentary elections represents the lowest in the history of the Islamic Republic’s legislative elections. Turnout in 2020 was 42.57%, in 2016 it reached 61.63% and in 2012 it was 63.87%.
As previously, turnout in major cities is significantly lower than in small towns and rural areas. In Tehran, only 24% of the eligible population voted, a 2% decrease from 2020.
With about 40% of ballot boxes counted from the 6,7000 polling stations, the leading candidate in Tehran has only garnered 110,000 votes so far. Once all ballot boxes are opened and counted, this number might reach 400,000. In contrast, the top MP in Tehran received 1.6m votes in 2020.
A distinctive feature of the elections were the number of no-hopers that were allowed to run. In 2020, about 7,500 candidates were deemed qualified to run. This year, the number doubled to 15,000, with most of the increase occurring in small towns and rural areas. Local rivalries between villages and small towns have become a key factor in driving people to the polls
Iranian officials were eager to ensure that turnout did not substantially drop below the 42.3% record-low of four years ago when officials blamed Covid and disillusionment with the Rouhani government.
One young Iranian said he did not know anyone of his generation that voted, adding: “Most of us do not know the candidates, and anyway the parliament has no powers since everything is vetted by the guardian council. It is seen as a joke.”
The Guardian was not provided with a visa to cover the election.