The counting of votes at the elections to the Majlis and the Assembly of Experts has finished in Iran. According to the Interior Ministry of Iran, reformers received at least 85 seats in the Majlis, moderates received 73 seats, conservatives received 68 seats, while members of religious minorities and the Armenian community received 5 seats. A second round of elections for the remaining 59 seats will be held in late March - early April.
Reformers and supporters of the government of President Hassan Rouhani have all 30 seats in Tehran, TASS noted.
The head of the Iranian Ministry of Internal Affairs, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, said that moderates gained 59% of seats in the Assembly of Experts of the 5th convocation, which consists of 88 scholars and Sharia experts. Moreover, all 16 seats in Tehran were received by moderates.
Thus, the conservatives who had a majority in the Majlis of the previous convocation, now may lose their majority due to the large success of the reformers. While they were able to guarantee 85 seats (30 of them in Tehran). Now they may even come to the fore, as they are supported by many independent candidates, as well as a number of moderate conservatives, such as the Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani.
The position of the conservatives in the Assembly of Experts was also shaken. Their current speaker Mohammad Yazdi is in 15th place. At the same time, one of the most intransigent Iranian conservatives, Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, lost his seat in Iran's top clerical body.
Against this background, the first and second places were taken by the President of Iran Hassan Rouhani and the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.
"The people showed their power once again and gave more credibility and strength to their elected government," Rouhani said following the elections.
The advisor to the Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council, deputy head of the Council of the Russian Diplomats Association, Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador Andrey Baklanov, in an interview with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza drew attention to the fact that today there is a brand new process in Iran in parallel with the traditional approach of dividing into three conditional flows. "This is the formation of a domestic and foreign policy in the country which would satisfy all three factions. And I think that the second direction will prevail in the future," he explained.
"So now it is necessary to not only monitor the distribution of seats among the three factions, but also the interpenetration of slogans and program requirements, which bring together all these flows," the expert added.
"We only wish that the country was able to work out the best option, which would be viable and would lead to an increase in the authority of the country, to a complete overcoming of complexity, to raising living standards and agreements in international relations both in the economic and financial sectors," Andrei Baklanov concluded.
A senior scientist of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the RAS, Stanislav Pritchin, said earlier in an interview with the correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza that, despite all the difficulties which the reformers faced during the registration of candidates for the elections, they were able to get through the campaign and receive a sufficient number of seats in the parliament, as well as implement the trust related to the nuclear deal, which the team of the president and the liberal wing have now. "For the most part these are political successes. The economic consequences, improvement cannot be felt now, as Iran returned to its usual markets, but it has not yet received a sufficient financial return," he said.
"Despite this, we see quite a serious success of the liberal Iranian wing. We see that Hassan Rouhani became a member of the Assembly of Experts, as well as Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. It will be easier for the Iranian President with the current parliamentary composition to implement the ideas necessary for further reforming in the country. We can say that a balance was actually observed here and the liberals, if necessary, will be able to carry out necessary decisions through the parliament," Stanislav Pritchin added.
