Thousands of candidates are competing for 290 seats ... starting voting in Iran's legislation

Al-Jazeera Net-Tehran

As usual during the past three decades, the Supreme Leader of the Iranian Republic, Ali Khamenei, was the first to vote in the legislative elections, and he renewed his ballot invitation to participate extensively in the voting process.

The polling stations opened their doors to about 58 million Iranian voters at exactly eight local time on Friday morning (04:30 GMT) in the first elections after US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran.

Washington also anticipated the electoral process in Iran by imposing sanctions on five officials in the Guardian Council - the body overseeing the elections - for refusing to qualify thousands of candidates and denying them the right to run in the legislative race.

The tenth session of the Iranian parliament ends on May 26, but according to Iranian laws, legislative elections must be held several months before the next session officially begins.

More than 7,000 candidates from 208 constituencies are competing for 290 parliamentary seats, 30 of which are for the capital, Tehran, which is the largest constituency in the country.

To coincide with the legislative elections throughout the country, the Iranian authorities invited the voters in the governorates of Tehran, Razavi Khorasan, North Khorasan and Persia, and participate in the complementary elections for the fifth session of the Leadership Experts Council, which is charged with appointing and removing the leader, as well as supervising the performance of his duties.

Participation challenge
While a spokesman for the Guardian Council, Abbas Kaddakhi, expected that popular participation would reach 50% in Friday's elections, some observers in Iran see this announcement as propaganda to urge the segment in which the boycott decided to participate.

For his part, member of the Central Council of the Iranian Building Cadres Party, Hussein Marashi, revealed in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net that the percentage of participation according to the data available to his party will be about 20% in Tehran, explaining that the results of opinion polls in the Iranian Ministry of Interior indicate that the participation rate will be in the range of 30 %.

In a development that may affect the rate of popular participation in the elections, the medical authorities in Iran confirmed the death of two citizens as a result of the infection of the Corona virus emerging in Qom, south of the capital Tehran, and the injury of others in a number of other cities.

In light of the lull in the propaganda campaigns, especially in Tehran during the past week, unofficial reports spoke of a "low participation" according to the results of opinion polls, prompting the Iranian Radio and Television to harness all the energies of its channels and broadcasts to urge the people to participate extensively in the vote.

Informative machine
And the Iranian media machine consists of about 100 local and international TV and radio stations distributed over 31 governorates, in addition to the channels and radio stations directed to the peoples speaking in other languages ​​including Arabic, English, Spanish, Azeri, Kurdish and other other languages.

With the voting date approaching, the Iranian media put the "countdown hour" until the polls were opened, and devoted several programs to urge the people to participate extensively in the vote, along with broadcasting statements and invitations of officials and religious references frequently.

Prior to the elections, competition in Tehran intensified between a common list of the conservative movement on the one hand, and a list of the Building Cadres Party and another for the alliance of eight reformist parties on the other.

Invitation to participate
For his part, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the heads of the executive, legislative and judicial authorities and references of religion in Iran have called on their citizens to participate extensively in the electoral elections.

The seats in the Iranian parliament are not without representation of the officially recognized religious minorities, according to the constitution, which allocated five seats to Christians, Jews, and Zoroastrians who anticipated opening funds by issuing statements calling for wide participation in them.

In addition to the three seats for the representation of Christian denominations (one for Assyrians and Chaldeans and two seats for the Armenians) in the Iranian parliament, both the Jewish and Zoroastrian minorities are represented by one seat in the Iranian legislature.

Electronic system
For his part, Interior Minister Abdel-Ridha Rahmani Fadli announced that about a million people are in charge of conducting the electoral process to ensure security and supervision and taking votes in more than 54,000 electoral centers.

The elections are distinguished by the existence of electronic systems that facilitate the voting process by transferring information and data automatically.

Rahmani Fadli explained that 24 of the 25 stations of the electoral process will be conducted in an electronic system, and that the only stage that will be implemented manually is "vote counting," adding that confirmation of the identity of the voters will take place through the electronic system.

The Iranian official also announced on April 18 the date for the second round of elections, if necessary.

In the context, the spokesman for the Guardian Council, Abbas Kadakhdi, announced that the council monitors are ready to start their supervisory role in distributing voting papers, explaining that from three to seven observers attend each polling center.

Today's elections are supervised by observers affiliated with the Ministry of Interior, the General Elections Authority and the Guardian Council, as well as other observers from the competing parties and currents.