Iranians vote today, conservatives expected to dominate

Iranians will vote today in elections for parliament and a key clerical body amid fears of low voter turnout and expectations that conservatives will consolidate power.
Since the last election, Iran has been heavily affected by international sanctions, which have led to an economic crisis. It has also been rocked by large-scale protests and drawn into escalating regional tensions over the war between Israel and Hamas.
More than 61 million people out of Iran's total population of 85 million are eligible to vote for members of parliament as well as clerics from the Assembly of Experts, the body responsible for electing Iran's supreme leader.
However, low voter turnout is expected after a survey by state television showed that more than half of those surveyed were indifferent to the election.
In the last parliamentary elections in the country in 2020, voter turnout was 42.57% - the lowest since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for high voter turnout.
"It is important to show the world that the nation is mobilized," Khamenei said on February 28, the last day of the campaign.
"Iran's enemies want to see if the people participate," he said, adding that otherwise "they will threaten your security one way or another."
Among those watching are the United States, "most Europeans, the evil Zionists, the capitalists and the big companies," he said.
Khamenei said the United States and Israel, which are "carefully" monitoring Iran's problems, "are afraid of the people's participation in the elections."
The head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Hossein Salami, said that "every vote is like a missile that is fired into the heart of our most powerful enemies."
"If our people want to participate in a powerful political battle, as in the past, and defeat the enemies, they must come to the stage and vote."
KGIR, the Islamic Republic's ideological defenders, noted that "strong involvement" would deter "foreign interventions".
Iran considers the United States, its Western allies and Israel to be "enemies" of the state and accuses them of trying to interfere in its internal affairs.
Candidates for Parliament are vetted by the Guardian Council, whose members are appointed or approved by the Supreme Leader.
They have endorsed a total of 15,200 candidates out of nearly 49,000 candidates who will be vying for seats in the 290-member parliament.
Analysts expect the conservatives and ultraconservatives, who hold 232 of the 290 seats in parliament in 2020 after reformist and moderate candidates were disqualified, to dominate again.
A coalition of parties called the Reform Front said it would not take part in "meaningless, non-competitive and ineffective elections".
Iran's former president, the reformist Mohammad Khatami, was quoted in February by the conservative Javan newspaper as saying that Iran was "very far from free and competitive elections".
Conservatives are also expected to maintain a strong position in the Assembly of Experts, an 88-member body made up exclusively of male Islamic scholars.
A total of 144 candidates ran in the election, but many were disqualified, including former moderate President Hassan Rouhani.
Friday's election is the first since Iran was rocked by mass protests sparked by the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini.
Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, was arrested for allegedly violating the Islamic republic's strict dress code for women.
Meanwhile, the war between Israel and Hamas has led to a sharp rise in tensions in the region, with pro-Tehran groups in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Yemen engaged in clashes with Israel or its Western allies.
The elections are also taking place against the backdrop of devastating international sanctions and growing economic difficulties in Iran, where inflation is around 50% and the local currency has collapsed against the dollar./BGNES