Iran To Hold Second Round Of Elections

Parliamentary elections in Tehran will have to be taken to a second round because most candidates failed to receive a quarter of the votes.

Elections headquarters said Saturday night that the second round will be set for one month after the results of the first round have been announced and confirmed by the Guardian Council.

According to Iranian law, parliamentary candidates must receive at least a quarter of the votes in each riding in order to win a seat in Parliament. Otherwise, the riding must advance to a second round of voting.

In addition to Tehran, several other ridings must go on to the next round.

So far, the preliminary Tehran vote count has revealed that Gholamali Haddad Adel is in the lead. Thirty of the 290 parliamentary seats are filled by candidates from the capital. The vote count in Tehran will be finalized tomorrow.

Iran’s Interior Minister has announced that participation in the parliamentary elections rose to 64.2 percent. However, opposition groups and websites have rejected the statement, insisting that voter turnout on Friday was low.

Reformists had called for a boycott of the elections. Some groups had called on people to stay in their homes and ignore the elections. They claim that the government’s persistence in keeping political prisoners under arrest is not conducive to the open political atmosphere that is necessary for fair and transparent elections.