TEHRAN — Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli announced on Sunday that turnout in the Friday parliamentary elections was around 42%.

Rahmani Fazli said that more than 24 million people out of 58 million eligible voters participated in the election, Mehr reported.

48% of voters were female and 52% were male, he said.

“This was while we had the problem of coronavirus as well as political circumstances and issues such as the downing of the plane, Aban (November) and Dey (January) incidents,” the minister said.

“Given such conditions, this level of turnout and people’s participation is completely acceptable,” he added.

Rahmani Fazli also said turnout in Tehran Province was around 25%.

A total of 7,148 candidates, including dozens of religious minorities, ran for parliament. 

In capital Tehran, 1,453 candidates competed for 30 seats.

Runoff elections will be held on April 17.

In Tehran, all 30 candidates enlisted by the principlist camp won by a large margin.

The list includes former Tehran mayor and former presidential candidate Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf with nearly 1,265,000 votes, followed by Seyed Mostafa Aqa Mirsalim, Morteza Aqa Tehrani, Elyas Naderan, Seyed Mohsen Dehnavi, Seyed Mohammad Nabavian, Ehsan Khandouzi, Eqbal Shakeri, Abolfazl Amouyee, Bijan Nobaveh Vatan, Mojtaba Tavangar, Fatemeh Rahbar, Mohsen Pirhadi, Rouhollah Izadkhah, Ahmad Naderi, Abdolhossein Rouhol Amini, Seyed Nezameddin Moussavi, Zohreh Elahian, Malek Shariati, Mehdi Sharifian, Seyed Reza Taqavi, Somayyeh Rafiyee, Seyed Ali Yazdikhah, Ali Khezrian, Reza Taqipour, Fatemeh Qasempour, Mojtaba Rezakhah, Zohreh Sadat Lajevardi, Gholam Hossein Rezvani and Ezzatollah Akbari Talarposhti.

Earlier on Sunday, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Ali Khamenei thanked the Iranian nation, who responded positively to the call for participation in the parliamentary elections.

Addressing a session of advanced Islamic Jurisprudence (Kharej–e Fiqh), Ayatollah Khamenei expressed gratitude to the Iranians for their high turnout in the elections, describing it as another great victory for the nation and another failure for the enemies.

Referring to the widespread negative propaganda by the enemies that aimed at disappointing people from taking part in the elections, the Leader said such propaganda had started a few months ago, and the foreign media increased their negative propaganda in the past days under the pretext of the outbreak of a new virus.

Leader added, “The God Almighty has determined to make the Iranian nation victorious despite all those vicious efforts.”

In comments just after voting on Friday, the Leader described the election as a “national celebration” and a day to “restore the civil rights of the nation”. 

MH/PA