GC Anticipates 50% Participation in Elections

IRAN NEWS NATIONAL DESK

TEHRAN – Guardian Council Spokesman Abbasali Kadkhodaee anticipated a 50 percent turnout in the upcoming Parliamentary Election.

Speaking in a press conference yesterday, Kadkhodaee stated, “We anticipate 50 percent of people will participate in the upcoming election.”

“Our forecast is that we will have a good turnout in the upcoming election, and the average turnout has usually not been under 50 percent, and we will witness a turnout of 50 percent turnout in this election too,” its spokesman said.

He further referred to the process of qualification of some candidates, adding “The legal time expired and we expressed our final opinion about them, maybe some mistakes have occurred on reviewing their cases, these are rare. We cannot review any new cases now. In fact, the electoral law should be revised so that some problems are removed.”

He added, “Based on electoral law in Iran, the reasons behind disqualification of candidates should be only announced to the candidates and we are not allowed to announce it publicly.”

Kadkhodaee further referred to the reasons behind the disqualification of candidates, adding “the basic reasons for disqualifications are either economic issues like financial abuses or acting against the establishment of the Islamic Republic of Iran. These are some of the reasons behind the disqualification of the candidates.”

He also stated that if the Guardian Council finds any violations in the process of elections which may affect the elections’ destiny, it will do its legal responsibility in this regard.

Kadkhodaee referred to the participation of people in the elections, noting, “I said that anyway, because of the good people we have in the Islamic Republic of Iran, we usually did not have less than 50% participation. But you know that under 50% also doesn’t cause any problems, and we do have less than 50 percent participation in European countries’ elections.”

Kadkhodaei also said, “Any U.S. act against our national interest like the assassination of Lieutenant General Qasem Soleimani makes more unity among the Iranian people.”

In response to a question relating to the parties in Iran, he stated, “Disqualification of candidates has no effect on people’s participation because we have many parties in the country. These problems are for those countries that have just two parties like the UK.”

According to Kadkhodaei, the candidates need 20 percent of votes to win the elections.