In most elections the central question, clearly, is who won, but the same cannot quite be asked of last Friday’s poll in Iran to elect a new parliament, where the winners were known well in advance. Attention shifted instead to how many people could be prevailed upon to participate in what for many Iranians was a meaningless exercise.
Most of the candidates of the opposition Reform Front were disqualified in advance, while electioneering was allowed only during one week. Activists urging a boycott were arrested, while on polling day stations stayed open for six hours more than first announced in an effort to boost the numbers. In spite of this, official figures published after the poll showed participation nationally came to only 41 per cent, which the minister of the interior dubbed “a magnificent mobilisation”. In fact it marked the lowest level of electoral participation since the Islamic Republic was founded in 1979. In the capital, Tehran, fewer than one in four voters turned out.
About 45 of the 290 seats in the Majlis (parliament) remain to be filled in a further run-off election in April or May, but the composition of the assembly is clear. Forty to 45 seats will go to moderates or reformists. In the remaining dominant bloc of about 200 deputies the only dividing line will be that between conservatives and extreme conservatives. Eleven seats have gone to women, a decrease on the 16 in the outgoing parliament.
Iran rose in revolt in 2022 after a young woman, Mahsa Amini, died in hospital three days after having been arrested by the religious police for wearing her headscarf “improperly”. In the nationwide wave of protests that followed, those demonstrating against Iran’s institutionalised system of sexual apartheid were joined by others brought onto the streets by economic hardship.
The government refused negotiation, responding instead with vicious repression which cost the lives of more than 500 civilians. In 2022 the Iranian regime turned its back on the people. Now it would seem that the people have turned their backs on it.