TEHRAN - Jamal Orf, the deputy Interior Minister and the head of the country’s election headquarters, said on Monday that a sum of 57,918,000 Iranians are eligible to participate in the parliamentary elections on Friday. 

“A sum of 57,918,000 Iranians are entitled to vote in the upcoming elections. A little more than 29 million voters are men and 28,800,000 are women,” Orf stated. 

He further said 2,900,000 of this figure are potential first-time voters. 

The eligible age in Iran to vote has been 18 since January 2007.

The parliamentary elections, the 11th of its kind since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, will be held in over 200 constituencies across the country’s 31 provinces.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Leader of the Islamic Revolution, said on Tuesday that if more people vote in the elections the next parliament will be “stronger”.

“The more people attend ballot boxes, Majlis will be stronger,” Ayatollah Khamenei said in a meeting with a large number of people from East Azarbaijan province to mark the anniversary of Tabrizers’ uprising against the Pahlavi regime on February 18, 1978.

President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that Iran has set the bedrock for democracy and elections in the West Asia region.