Iran elections: Why the big worry is that voters won't turn up

The country of Iran, which has witnessed huge protests following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, is going to the polls today (1 March).

Two separate polls are being held — one for members of a new legislature, and the other for the Assembly of Experts, a key body tasked with selecting the Islamic republic’s supreme leader.

Voters and turnout

Iran holds elections for parliament every four years and for the Assembly of Experts every eight years. In a country estimated to have an 85 million people, around 61 million are eligible to vote.

For today’s election, around 59,000 polling stations have been set up, mainly across schools and mosques.

Senior state officials have urged people to vote, with speculation rife that there will be a low turnout. In fact, a recent poll conducted by Iran’s state television revealed that more than half the respondents were indifferent to the polls.

And low turnout is an issue in Iran; the 2020 elections saw only a 42.57 per cent turnout, the lowest since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Women’s role in Iran elections

Women have the right to vote in Iran and make up 30 million of the electorate. As per official government data, nearly 12 per cent of the total number of hopefuls running for the elections this time around are women.

As per IRNA news agency, the current parliament has 16 women members.

It will be interesting to see how women, if they do vote, will cast their ballot in light of the protests that broke out after Amini’s death. In fact, several hundreds of people died in the ensuing protests and several activists have also called for a boycott of these polls. One of them is imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, who called them a “sham”. “The Islamic Republic, with its ruthless and brutal suppression, the killing of young people on the streets, the executions and the imprisonment and torture of men and women, deserves national sanctions and global disgrace,” Mohammadi said in a statement.

Parliament’s limited role

In Iran, the 290-member parliament is a unicameral chamber known as Islamic Consultative Assembly. Candidates can only stand after being vetted Guardian Council, whose members are either appointed or approved by the supreme leader.

Jurists from the Guardian Council have approved about 15,200 hopefuls, out of nearly 49,000 applicants, to run for seats in the parliament.

The parliament’s powers are limited, with any legislation that it passes requiring approval by jurists from the Guardian Council.

The legislature includes representatives from religious minorities recognised by Iran’s constitution including one each for Assyrians, Jews and Zoroastrians, as well as two for Armenian Christians.

Conservatives in power

Candidates for parliamentary seats largely belong to two main camps: conservatives and reformists.

Iran’s present parliament is dominated by conservatives and ultra-conservatives, and observers expect that the new parliament will have a similar makeup.

A number of incumbent parliamentarians have been disqualified from re-election.

Some reformists have criticised the elections, with former president Mohammad Khatami quoted as saying this month by the conservative Javan daily that Iran was “very far from free and competitive elections”.

Selection of Supreme Leader

Along with the parliamentary election is the election to the Assembly of Experts — an 88-member body exclusively made up of male Islamic scholars. This body is responsible for electing, supervising and, if necessary, dismissing the supreme leader, who has the final say in all matters of state.

The assembly elected current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 84, in 1989 after the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini who founded the Islamic republic.

The 97-year-old ultra-conservative Ahmad Jannati is the current head of the assembly.

Candidates for the assembly are also vetted by the Guardian Council, which approved 144 of them.

Former moderate president Hassan Rouhani, who had spent 24 years as a member, said he had been barred from standing.

With inputs from AFP