TEHRAN – Principlists captured a great majority of the seats in the parliament in the Friday elections.

The independents and reformists came second and third.

Initial vote counting in the metropolis of Tehran showed that the 30-candidate list headed by former Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has won all the 30 seats reserved for Tehran in the 290-seat chamber.

All analysts are unanimous in their view that Ghalibaf, who ran for the presidential post in 2005 and 2013, is poised to be elected parliament speaker in the next parliament, which starts its work in late spring.    

After Ghalibaf, Mostafa Mirsalim, a former culture minister in the Hashemi Rafsanjani administration, has secured the most votes.

Both Mirsalim and Ghalibaf ran against incumbent president Hassan Rouhani in the 2017 presidential election; however, Ghalibaf withdrew candidacy in favor of Ebrahim Raisi, who now chairs the Judiciary.

The chief slogan of the list led by Ghalibaf was “Saving the Iranian Economy”.

The names of the 30 candidates in the Ghalibaf list in Tehran is as follows: 

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Mostafa Mir Salim, Morteza Agha Tehrani, Elyas Naderan, Mohsen Dehnavi, Mahmoud Nabavian, Mohsen Pirhadi, Ehsan Khandouzi, Abolfazl Amouei,  Fatemeh Rahbar, Eghbal Shakeri, Bijan Nobaveh, Mojtaba Tavangar, Rohollah Izadkhah, Ahmad Naderi, Zohreh Elahian, Nezmoldin Mousavi, Abdul-Hossein Rouholamini, Mehdi Sharifian, Reza Taghavi, Malek Shariati, Somayeh Rafiei, Ali Yazdikhah, Ali Khezarian, Fatemeh Qassempour, Mojtaba Rezakhah, Reza Taghipour, Zohreh Lajevardi, Gholam-Hossin Rezvani and Ezatollah Akbari. 

Arrangement of the abovementioned list is likely to change after vote counting if completed.

According to the Interior Ministry, the next 10 candidates winning most votes are: Vahid Yamipour, Hamid Rasaei, Ali Jafari, Alireza Mahjoub, Mohammad Sadeq Shahbazi and Soheila Jelodarzadeh.

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

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

The chances of being elected to parliament in the metropolis of Tehran without being in a list is highly unlikely.

According to numbers made public on Saturday, run-off elections will be held in several constituencies where candidates have failed to gain a minimum of 20 percent of the votes.

Runoff elections will be held on April 17.

MJ/PA