Two winners from Iran's elections: Hardliners and security crackdown
The ruling establishment scrambled to persuade voters, anticipating a record low turnout following its deadly crackdown on the 2022 unrest.
Iran held elections on Friday for its parliament as well as the powerful clerical body, the Assembly of Experts, which is in charge of supervising and appointing the country's supreme leader.
As polls opened at 8:00 a.m. local time (4:30 GMT) on Friday, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 84, was shown on state TV, walking without his signature crane toward a ballot box inside a hall packed with reporters at his heavily guarded central Tehran residence.
"Undecided voters should disappoint the ill-wishers," Khamenei stated, making a last-minute plea in a chain of such public requests he has made in the run-up to persuade an apathetic voter population.
As many as 12,500 candidates competed nationwide for 290 seats in parliament, while 144 clerics entered the race for the Assembly of Experts to grab 88 seats for an eight-year mandate.
