Principalists Take Lead in Majlis Elections
IRAN NEWS POLITICAL DESK
TEHRAN – Principalists are leading across different constituencies in Iran’s 11th parliamentary elections, partial results show.
The initial results were published by Iranian media outlets from varying political backgrounds hours after voting ended on Friday midnight.
According to the Fars News Agency, principalists hold a clear lead in the capital Tehran, which has 30 seats in parliament.
It also announced the names of the leading candidates in Tehran’s 30 parliamentary seats. All were pincipalists led by Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who is expected to be the next parliament speaker.
Spokesman and secretary of the Interior Ministry’s elections committee, Esmail Mousavi said official constituency results will be announced later on Saturday.
“In certain constituencies, however, releasing results will take until Sunday due to the number of candidates,” he said.
“So far, 42 seats of the parliament had been won outright by candidates,” state television reported on Saturday.
Mousavi also said the process of vote counting ws underway, expressing hope that the final results of the Friday elections in larger cities would be announced by today (Sunday).
“The colleagues in all polling stations are counting votes and drafting minutes,” he said.
“God willing, after counting the ballots cast at the stations, the results will be announced to the Election Headquarters,” he said, adding, “We will inform the public of the results of each constituency according to the routine process in the Election Headquarters.”
Polling stations across the country had opened at 8:00 a.m. (0430 GMT) on Friday and were scheduled to close at 6:00 p.m.
Voting, however, was extended several times until midnight as people continued to go to the polling stations to cast their ballots.
Reformists were able to relatively dominate the previous parliamentary elections in 2016.
