Candidates affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards looked on course to win a parliamentary majority on Saturday, reportedly leading in the race in Tehran and towns and villages elsewhere.
An Interior Ministry official said a list of candidates affiliated with the Guards led in the capital.
Lists linked to hardliners captured 83 seats in towns and villages across the country following Friday’s vote, according to a Reuters tally.
A clean sweep for hardliners would confirm the political demise of the country’s pragmatist politicians, weakened by Washington’s decision to quit a 2015 nuclear deal and reimpose sanctions in a move that stifled rapprochement with the West.
However, Iranian authorities have yet to announce the turnout in the race for the 290-seat legislature — a litmus test of the popularity of hardliners closely associated with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Iran’s rulers, under intense US pressure over the country’s nuclear programme, need a high turnout to boost their legitimacy, damaged after nationwide protests in November.
Such a result would help the Guards, already omnipresent in Iranians’ daily lives, to increase their substantial influence in political, social and economic affairs.
The demonstrations, which called for regime change, were met with a violent crackdown overseen by the Guards which killed hundreds and led to the arrest of thousands, according to human rights organisations.
Read the article by Paria Hafezi in The Canberra Times.