Conservatives in early lead in Iran parliamentary election

Iran has started counting votes a day after its parliamentary election in which conservative allies of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are likely to gain a sizeable majority based on partial results, Al-Jazeera reports.

Iranian authorities have yet to announce the turnout in the February 21 election for the 290-seat parliament, but some early results announced by the Ministry of
Interior indicated that the loyalists to Khamenei were set for gains.

“So far, 42 seats of the parliament had been won outright by candidates,” state television reported on Saturday.

It also announced the names of the leading candidates in Tehran’s 30 parliamentary seats. All were hardliners led by Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who is expected to be the next parliament speaker.

“While the official results of the parliamentary elections have not been announced yet, it is likely that conservatives are more likely to get a majority in the parliament and it seem like it will be a landslide victory,” Abas Aslani, a senior research fellow at the Centre for Middle East Strategic Studies, told Al Jazeera.

He said this will be “very important in the months to come”, with a presidential election scheduled for next year.

“We already have the judiciary branch which is with the conservatives, and if the parliament goes more conservative, I think the executive branch, which is the presidency, they will be working very hard to get that too,” he added.
Nearly half of the 16,033 hopefuls in the election were barred by the Guardian Council, a conservative-dominated vetting body. Most of the disqualified candidates were moderates and reformists.