Azerbaijan, Baku, March 3 /Trend T. Jafarov/
Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar, whose ministry is in charge of elections in the country, announced on Saturday that elections have ended for 135 candidates who have won a majority of votes in the Friday polls, while ballot counting will continue for the remaining 155 seats in the next two days, Mehr News reported.
Speaking to reporters here in Tehran this afternoon, Mohammad Najjar stated that initial estimates show that around 64.2% of eligible voters have participated in the March 2 parliamentary elections.
"The ballot papers cast at 40,536 out of 46,924 polling stations have so far been counted, and the total number of the votes (cast at the said stations) stands at 26,472,760," Mohammad Najjar said.
He added that counting has ended in 145 out of 207 constituencies and 135 candidates have so far won parliamentary seats, while candidates in 10 constituencies should launch runoff campaigns.
Over 48 million Iranian voters were eligible to cast their ballots in the Friday's legislative polls.
A sum of over 3,269 hopefuls vied with each other for 290 parliament seats.
The turnout was so high that the Interior Ministry was made to extend the deadline four times.