TEHRAN: Iranians across the country voted Friday in the country’s first election since its nuclear deal with world powers.
The election for Iran’s Parliament and a cleric body known as the Assembly of Experts hinges on both the policies of President Hassan Rouhani, as well as Iranians worries about the country’s economy, long battered by international sanctions.
Nearly 55 million of Iran’s 80 million people are eligible to vote and there were long lines at polling places since morning hours.
Voters cast ballots at some 53,000 polling stations, writing down the names of their picks on two separate ballots and dyeing their fingers with ink to show they had voted.
Turnout figures and other statistics were not immediately available, though Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli predicted late Thursday there would be a turnout of 70 percent.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader who has final say on all state matters, was among the first to vote in the capital, Tehran.
Rouhani, himself a candidate in the Assembly of Experts election, also addressed journalists after voting, saying he expected an “epic” turnout.
The vote is unlikely to radically change Iran, but reformists and moderates peeling away seats from hard-liners could help Rouhani push through his domestic agenda. While the majority of reformists were barred from running, they could still win a substantial bloc of Parliament’s 290 seats with their allies.
The election for Iran’s Parliament and a cleric body known as the Assembly of Experts hinges on both the policies of President Hassan Rouhani, as well as Iranians worries about the country’s economy, long battered by international sanctions.
Nearly 55 million of Iran’s 80 million people are eligible to vote and there were long lines at polling places since morning hours.
Voters cast ballots at some 53,000 polling stations, writing down the names of their picks on two separate ballots and dyeing their fingers with ink to show they had voted.
Turnout figures and other statistics were not immediately available, though Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli predicted late Thursday there would be a turnout of 70 percent.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader who has final say on all state matters, was among the first to vote in the capital, Tehran.
Rouhani, himself a candidate in the Assembly of Experts election, also addressed journalists after voting, saying he expected an “epic” turnout.
The vote is unlikely to radically change Iran, but reformists and moderates peeling away seats from hard-liners could help Rouhani push through his domestic agenda. While the majority of reformists were barred from running, they could still win a substantial bloc of Parliament’s 290 seats with their allies.
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