About 59,000 polling stations opened this morning in Iran for the parliamentary electionswhose key stake is turnout, as incumbent conservatives are seen as certain to retain a large majority.

In addition to the members of parliament, the 61 million voters are called to renew the Assembly of Experts responsible for choosing the country’s supreme leader.

According to tradition, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, voted shortly after 08:00 (local time, 06:30 Greek time).

In a brief statement, he called on Iranians to “vote as soon as possible” after calling for “strong and dynamic elections” on Wednesday, the last day of the election campaign, because “it is important to show the world that the nation has mobilized.”

The latest poll published by state television showed that 41% of respondents would “undoubtedly” go to vote.

In the previous parliamentary elections, only 42.57% of voters went to the polls, the lowest percentage since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

Participation in the elections is even more critical as the regime presents it as proof of its legitimacy amid strong geopolitical tensions.

“Iran’s enemies want to see if the people are present,” because otherwise, “they will threaten our security in one way or another,” Khamenei warned young Iranians voting for the first time.

According to him, “the US, the majority of European countries, the malicious Zionists, the capitalists and big business” they fear “the power of the Iranian people”.

The Revolutionary Guards — Iran’s elite military — also estimated that a “big turnout” would allow any “foreign interference” to be deterred.

Their commander Hossein Salami compared “each vote” to “a missile launched into the heart of our enemies”, as reported by the Tasnim news agency.

Financial concerns

The election, in which a record number of 15,200 candidates are participating, is not going to tip the balance in the single body of parliament.

The conservatives and ultraconservatives will continue to dominate there, as they do in the current parliament where they hold more than 230 of the 290 seats.

The overall results are expected on Sunday or Monday.

Centrist, reformist or moderate parties have been sidelined after the 2020 elections and can only hope to elect a handful of MPs, following the exclusion of many of their candidates by the Constitutional Guard Council.

These elections “have no meaning”, the main coalition of reformist parties complained, announcing that it would not participate.

Iran is “far from free and competitive elections,” said Mohammad Khatami, the country’s reformist former president from 1997 to 2005.

The conservatives are also set to strengthen their control over the Assembly of Experts, a body of 88 clerics responsible for appointing and dismissing Iran’s supreme leader.

These elections are the first to be held since the large protest movement that rocked Iran in September 2022 following the death of Mahsha Amini, a young woman who was arrested by the morality police for not wearing her headscarf properly.

Several hundred people were killed and thousands arrested in the protests that followed and ended in late 2022.

For many Iranians the main concern today is the economy, while inflation is approaching 50%.

“The prices are extremely high and they don’t stop rising. I don’t believe that the deputies who will be elected will be able to improve this situation,” complained Masoumeh, a 40-year-old housewife.