Iran reports lowest voter turnout since 1979

PanARMENIAN.Net - Iran's interior minister has announced that the voter turnout in the recent parliamentary elections was about 42%, the lowest since the 1979 revolution, Al Jazeera reports.

It was the first time turnout dipped below the 50% mark since the revolution as the country's top leader said its enemies played up the threat of the new coronavirus to dissuade people from voting.

"The turnout across the country was 42.57%," Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli told a televised news conference on Sunday. "In [the capital] Tehran, it was around 25%. Across Iran, over 24 million people voted."

Fazli said the election took place under less-than-ideal circumstances, but nevertheless, "we believe that the number of votes and the turnout is absolutely acceptable".

In the 2016 polls, the turnout was 62%, while four years earlier, it was 66%. The 2020 figure will be a disappointment for the country's political leadership, which had called for a turnout of at least 55 to 60% in the run-up to the elections.