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Good turnout in Iran poll

— Photo: AP

MAKING A CHOICE: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei casts his ballot in Tehran on Friday.

DUBAI: Iranians have cast their vote on Friday to elect 290 lawmakers amid anticipation that a moderate wing of conservatives will do well in the parliamentary poll.

The election is essentially an intra-conservative contest, between hardliners loyal to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and “soft” conservatives represented by the former chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, and Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf.

The reformist camp, which is a coalition drawing inspiration from the former President, Mohammad Khatami, and Mehdi Karroubi, a cleric, was marginalised ahead of the polls.

The Guardian Council — a body of clerics and jurists, loyal to Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei — disqualified around 1,700 candidates, most of whom were reformists.

The disqualifications came about because the Guardian Council declared these candidates insufficiently loyal to the ideals of the Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

An Iranian opinion poll ahead of the voting anticipated a nationwide turnout of around 60 per cent, with low polling expected in capital Tehran. Iran’s Press TV quoted Interior Minister Mostafa Pour Mohammadi as saying the average public participation in elections in the world was 45-60 per cent.

In Iran the average polling is around 62.5 per cent.

State television has been playing patriotic music and running interviews with ordinary and well-known Iranians, with a view to encourage greater participation in voting. Meanwhile, Mr. Ahmadinejad said on Friday the “massive turnout” in the elections was a blow to foreign media which had discouraged the electorate to participate in the polls.

The election results are expected on Tuesday.

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