Citizens of Iran participated in the parliamentary elections on Friday, March 1 (11th of August) in the country because of the growing dissatisfaction with the economic problems and restrictions on the freedom of civil activities in the country.

The election on Friday is seen as a test for the authority of the religious leadership in Iran. Most of the candidates for parliament are conservative extremists and voters have few options for election representatives. Voters will also vote for members of the Assembly of Experts, the assembly that elects the leader of Iran.

Ali Khamenei, the leader of Iran who called voting a religious obligation, was the first person to vote in the elections on Friday.

Khamenei said during a televised speech about the people of Iran: “Compete in good deeds and be ahead of others. I said it in the past elections, and now I emphasize that you should cast your vote in the box as early as possible.”

Since the Islamic Revolution in 1979, this is the first election in which the level of support reflects public opinion after popular protests in the years 2022 and 2023 for the Islamic Republic.

The rulers of Iran need a large public presence to restore their legitimacy, because after the protests of the people, after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman of Kurdish descent, the country witnessed chaos and unrest. But official polls show that only 41 percent of eligible Iranians participate in this election.

In the parliamentary elections of 2020, people’s participation in the elections will reach the lowest historical rate, i.e. 42.5%, while the people’s participation in the 2016 elections was almost 62%.

A number of critics of the government called the parliamentary elections in the country a “circus” through social media and encouraged people to avoid voting in the elections. According to the critics of the government, participation in the elections will give Islamic legitimacy to the government. Meanwhile, the state-run television in Kishor is reporting on the number of voters whether they will vote to please Khamenei, the leader of Iran.

Iran’s Ministry of Interior has said that 15,200 people are competing against each other to win 290 seats in the parliament. It is expected that the results of the preliminary elections will be announced on Saturday.

Although the authorities of Iran, including Khamenei, have asked the people to participate widely in the country’s elections, the news media called “Etimad Online” wrote in the history of the first edition: This way of checking the competences and monitoring of actions will be seen as desirable, and even some spectrums of fundamentalism will not have any hope of participation in the elections.”

A day before the elections, Matthew Miller, the spokesman of the United States Department of State, said on Thursday, 10 February, that the elections in the Islamic Republic of Iran are not “free and fair”.

At the daily press conference, in response to a question about the expectations and assessment of the US State Department regarding the Islamic Majlis Shura elections, Miller said that he does not expect the elections in Iran to be “free and fair” and said that the people of Iran also expect the elections to be free and fair. They do not have children.

And he said: “As you probably know, thousands of candidates have already been disqualified in a non-transparent process, and the world has known for a long time that Iran’s political system has an undemocratic and non-transparent executive, judicial and electoral system.”