Iranian elections .. Conservatives unite and reformists count on popular participation

Al-Jazeera Net-Tehran

Two days before the election date for the Iranian Parliament elections, the conservatives announced, at dawn, early today, Wednesday, a unified list to run in the elections scheduled for next Friday, while a reformist party played down the impact of this step after polls expected low participation in the poll.

The conservatives published their consolidated list, which merged the lists of the revolutionary forces and the Al-Samoud Front, which are described as the wings of the conservative movement in the country, after marathon rounds of negotiations between the leaders of the two lists.

This announcement came to crown the efforts of leaders in the conservative movement in recent days that finally succeeded in adopting a unified list, although these efforts did not succeed in unifying the conservatives during attempts that lasted for more than a year, and all ended with the announcement of nine conservative lists until Tuesday evening, but the decision of the reformist parties By contesting the electoral merits, he pushed the governors to put their differences aside, according to what observers believe.

Unit List
The conservative house published late last night a statement in which it announced reaching a "unity list" after resolving the outstanding problems between the traditional conservative wing and the Al-Samoud Front, and called on the voters in the capital Tehran to vote for its list of 30 candidates.

Sources close to the Conservative Revolutionary Forces Alliance Council revealed to Al-Jazeera Net that "the leadership of former Tehran Mayor Muhammad Baqir Qalibaf to the Conservative List and his presence in it formed the main point of contention during the previous period," explaining that the front eventually accepted Qalibaf's leadership of the joint list "according to the political interest" despite Continuing reservations about it.

Qalibaf and his biography
Despite his accomplishments during his tenure as mayor of Tehran, the name of the conservative politician, Muhammad Baqir Qalibaf, was associated with the failure in the presidential elections in 2005, 2013, and 2017, and this contributed, according to the conservative source, who preferred not to be named, to increasing the sensitivity of some of the conservative current’s wings to it.

Qalibaf's critics say that his leadership of the Conservative List in light of the accusations against him of being involved in granting real estate to officials in the Tehran municipality with multiple discounts and installments, may lead to a decline in their votes, especially in light of the results of opinion polls that talk about low participation in the upcoming Friday elections.

Conservatives count on who leads the list in the ranks to head the next legislative authority, and this is what the reformists, who see their chances of being still in Tehran, exclude, despite the exclusion of many of their candidates from the electoral race.

Correctional camp
On the other hand, the reformists insisted on the distribution of roles in the electoral process by affirming the Supreme Council for Reforming Policies not to submit a list in the upcoming elections, while allowing the parties under its mantle to participate in its name on the one hand, and affirming the parties that had previously put forward a list that no change in their electoral tactics from Another party.

Secretary of the Supreme Council for the Reformation Policy, Ather Mansouri, quoted former reformist President Mohammad Khatami as saying that he would participate in Friday's elections, but he does not support any of the reformist lists that have been published so far.

Commenting on the publication of the Conservative Consolidated List, Hossein Marashi, a member of the Central Council of the Building Cadres Party - which was the first to launch a reform list for the elections - stressed that there is no change in the party's list, and that his support for the joint list of reformist parties under the title "Alliance for Iran" comes under Participation of 20 construction cadre candidates.

In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, he stressed that the unity of the conservatives will not affect their share in Tehran, stressing that the dominant political orientation in Tehran and the major Iranian cities is "reformist", and there is no hope for the conservatives to win except when the popular participation in them is "low", explaining that the participation rate According to the data available to his party, it will be about 20%.

But he revealed that the results of opinion polls in the Iranian Ministry of Interior indicate that the participation rate will be in the range of 30%, stressing that the high rate of popular participation will lead to the success of the reformists in the upcoming elections, and this is what the reformists depend on.