Originally appeared at ZeroHedge
Early results from Friday’s nationwide Iran parliamentary elections show a landslide for conservative and hawkish anti-West candidates, with forecasts showing them taking more than two-thirds of the seats.
Iranian state TV announced Sunday that hardliners won a landslide all 30 seats in Tehran, AP reports. Much of this conservative group is led by old guard supporters of ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, in a victory seen as a major blow to ‘reformist’ President Hassan Rouhani and his supporters.
US state-funded Radio Farda identifies “that least 15 former cabinet ministers and provincial governors close to former ultraconservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s have also won in the elections” — among them Habibollah Dahmardeh, Ebrahim Azizi, Abdolreza Mesri, Hamid Reza Hajibabai, and Ali Nikzad.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei casts his vote near his office in Tehran. Image source: Reuters
And The Guardian notes of the early results that “The reformists, the largest grouping in the outgoing parliament, have been decisively beaten, with predictions showing them taking only 17 seats in the 290-strong parliament. The principalists – or conservatives – were on course to take around 200 seats, including all 30 seats in the capital, Tehran, previously a stronghold of the reformers.”
This after Iran’s election watchdog, dubbed the Guardian Council, admitted to disqualifying thousands of candidates just days before the vote.
The State Department has said this translated to over 7,000 candidates that were denied a place in Friday’s parliamentary elections, for which the Trump administration leveled sanctions against key Iranian individuals on the Guardian Council.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei still lambasted a “conspiracy” of external US and Israeli attempts at interference in the elections, but still praised the election as a “shining” victory affirming “the people’s religious and revolutionary beliefs.”
Hardliners win majority in Iran.
2016 elections won by moderates who supported Rouhani/nuclear deal with global powers.
This election returns control to conservatives who want to abandon Rouhani push to open up to Western investment and trade.@RcShahlahttps://t.co/gs79Oegoul
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) February 23, 2020
Interestingly, Iran’s leaders have lately blamed hyped and ‘exaggerated’ coverage of the coronavirus as designed to keep Iranians away from the polls. It’s being reported as an incredibly low turnout compared to past elections.
“In the face of the enemy’s conspiracy to hit various pillars of the country, we all need to be vigilant in defense and ready for attack and counterattack,” Khamenei said Sunday.
liberals fucked in the axx…haha
This election had the lowest turn out in all the elections since 1979, with about %42.5. More than a year campaigning to convince people not to vote, but the explosive coverage of Corona outbreak and scare a couple of days before the election had more effect to scare many to stay home.
Something strange happened in Iran’s internal politics. 15 years ago president Rohani was not considered a reformist or even moderate (there was no moderate, you were either this or that), he was an all out principalist, now they say he’s a reformist? Anyway, his group and reformists have no one to blame but themselves with wrong policies, insistence on tried and proved wrong decisions and outright changing his words and promises by making invalid excuses, many people are very angry about them. They were majority in current parliament and did nothing, disqualification or not (of the current PMs, about 70 were disqualified on the grounds of financial wrongdoings, they will be tried after their therm finished and their immunity lifted. Interesting resume, no?), the 1st candidate of reformists had had only about %3.5 of the votes of the 1st candidate of principalists (1:18). People had enough of them. I personally considered only the candidates who signed the transparency deceleration and chose between them. Many others supported this campaign too.
“explosive coverage of Corona outbreak ….. scare many to stay home.” – Is that a bad thing ? Until 19/2/2020 Iran lied about the absence of Corona patients in Iran. That is why Iranians were not careful and so were other countries, with regard to Iranians. Today we know that the mullahs regime knew long before 19/2/20 that there were coronavirus patients in Iran. And yet the regime did not warn the Iranians. The result is already known – Iranian patients have arrived in Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Bahrain, Kuwait, the UAE and Canada. And 50 people died only in the city of Qom.
Huh! What you say best describes Israel which absolutely denied the presence of sickness, until a group of South Koreans returned home from there and turned out 9 of them are infected. From that point they couldn’t lie anymore. I somehow doubt if Israelis got it from us.
Iran suspended direct flights to and from China early on. Dedicated flights returned students and businessmen from there which went into quarantine for 2 weeks and none of them were infected. Now it is determined that the first patient (also the first to die), a Qom resident, via an indirect flight brought the virus either from China or UAE.
About the number of victims, I only trust the official announcements from the Iranian health ministry (announced each day at noon) and not anybody else, specially not BBC or other disinformation war outlets which only sow panic and scare on overdrive.
1. According to the virus incubation period, the Korean tourists arrived sick to Israel. How does Israel relate to the fact that your regime lied about the disease data in Iran? 2. Your regime seems to be much more interested in PR than in the health of Iranian citizens.
Thanks again Garga, your insights are always helpful!
ANY politicians in any of the world nations who are funded in any way by foreign powers and corporate interests should be excluded from standing for election in their countries.
In addition to that all politicians everywhere, should only have ONE national citizenship.
Those aspiring politicians who accept foreign funding should seek alternative employment elsewhere. :)
No doubt the US will complain, whilst ignoring their own problems with electoral voting.
Very good, enough of western-appeasing figures like rouhani/zarif