Iranian parliamentary elections 2024: what you need to know

Why are these elections important?

Iran will hold parliamentary elections on March 1, the first universal vote since an uprising led by women and girls swept through the country in 2022 and called for an end to the Islamic Republic’s rule. The government has violently suppressed the protests, but calls for change persist and many Iranians view boycotting the elections as an act of protest.

Voter turnout in the elections is expected to be low, especially in the capital Tehran and other major cities, according to the government’s own polls cited in Iranian media. The elections are important because voter turnout is seen as a barometer of legitimacy by both supporters and critics of the government. Opponents say they are sitting out the vote to signal that they no longer believe meaningful change can come through the ballot box under the current system.

Separate elections will be held on March 1 to elect the members of an 88-seat body called the Assembly of Experts. Iran’s constitution requires the assembly to elect the supreme leader, the highest administrative authority, who has the final say on all major state affairs and serves as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. The assembly also functions as an advisory body to the supreme leader and can monitor or dismiss him, although it has never done so.

The current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is 84 years old and has been in his role for more than thirty years. The next meeting is largely expected to elect his successor.

Are the elections fair and free in Iran?

Elections in Iran are not considered fair and free, according to critics and human rights groups, due to the murky process of vetting candidates and mass disqualifications by the Guardian Council. The council is accused of organizing elections, both for the president and parliament, because it essentially takes away the public’s element of choice and limits their choice to candidates it deems fit for office.

Iran’s elections were once competitive, with candidates from all major political parties on the ballot. The results were unpredictable and participation was high. But in recent years, voters have only been given conservative candidates to choose from.

In the upcoming parliamentary elections, the names of the final candidates were announced less than two weeks before the March 1 vote, and campaigning began ten days before that. For Iranians planning to vote, there is little time to get to know the candidates and understand the issues they plan to tackle once elected. For those boycotting the elections, the last-minute announcement of candidates and hasty campaigns are further reasons to view the elections as neither free nor fair.

Who is running for Parliament?

The candidates must all be vetted and approved by a 12-member clerical body called the Guardian Council, which has disqualified a range of candidates from independents to centrists and almost all the names put forward by the reformist political faction. The Reform Front, the coalition of reformist parties that generally support greater social freedom and engagement with the West, announced that there were no candidates in these elections, calling them “pointless, uncompetitive and ineffective elections.”

The majority of the 15,200 candidates standing for election come from conservative political parties. They are running to fill Parliament’s 290 seats, each of which has a four-year term of office. The candidates include 1,713 women, which is more than double the number who stood as candidates in the last parliamentary elections in 2020.