Attending a press conference on Saturday, Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli deemed turnout in Iran’s Parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections very satisfactory, saying “according to the 33 million counted votes, over 60 percent of eligible voters participated in the elections.”
Noting the elections were staged in a peaceful atmosphere in terms of security and politics, he said “we have received no reports on revocation of elections due to the possibility of vote rigging in any polling stations across the country.”
He went on to add that nearly 70 million votes have been cast into ballot boxes for twin elections.
“We have drummed up cooperation with the Guardian Council to ensure an ethical and healthy election; this has slowed down the process but increased its precision,” he said, noting over 70 percent of poll tally has been completed in all constituencies.
Rahmani Fazli then referred to the results of the Assembly of Experts election in Tehran, saying “according to reports I received a few hours ago, so far vote counting for 3,000 polling stations has been finished in Tehran and we hope the primary results of the elections in Tehran will be announced by Saturday night.”
He went on to add that after the final confirmation of elections results by the Guardian Council, runoff will be held up to one month away, sometime in early March or late April.
To a question on whether results would not be announced for constituencies that had only one candidate for the Assembly of Experts, he said “results of many constituencies for the Assembly of Experts elections have been finalized, but all affairs related to the Assembly are within the responsibility of the Guardian Council, and we are only in charge of announcing the results. Even in constituencies with one candidate, the results will be announced once all votes have been counted.”
Regarding the unofficial announcement of elections results by certain news agencies as well as media infractions during the period of electoral campaigns, Rahmani Fazli said over 340 infractions from websites and media have been recorded.
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