BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb.21
By Elnur Baghishov - Trend:
So far, more than 8 million voters participated in the 11th parliamentary elections and the 5th regular elections of the Expert Council in Iran, said the spokesman of the Election Commission of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Iran, Ismail Mousavi.
Mousavi pointed to the activity of the voters at the polling stations. He also said that the voter IDs are being registered electronically at the polling stations.
According to Musavi, the activity of voters is observed in the election process.
Musavi added that voter IDs were registered electronically in polling stations.
Iran holds the 11th parliamentary elections and the 5th regular elections of the Expert Council on Feb. 21.
Some 16,033 people got registered as candidates for the parliamentary elections in Iran. Later some 30 percent of the candidates got disqualified by Iran's Guardian Council. More than 7,100 candidates are running for 290 seats in the Iranian parliamentary elections. There are 57,918,000 eligible voters in the ongoing parliamentary elections.
The elections are held in 208 constituencies and 54,000 polling stations, where the passports are being stamped.
Parliamentary candidates in Iran are usually aligned with reformists or conservatives, also referred to as "principlists". These are the two main political currents.
The conservatives are traditionally seen as supportive of greater state intervention, socially and economically, and most of them did not support the nuclear deal and negotiations with the US.
On the other hand, reformists pushed for the nuclear deal and are seen to be supportive of a more open-market economy.
The country's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and President Hassan Rouhani have called for a high voter turnout, and asked the public to come together.