STORY: Turnout in Iran's 2 major elections reaches 41 pct: minister
SHOOTING TIME: March 4, 2024
DATELINE: March 5, 2024
LENGTH: 00:00:34
LOCATION: Tehran
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the press conference

STORYLINE:

Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi said Monday at a press conference in Tehran that the turnout in the country's 12th parliamentary and sixth Assembly of Experts elections, which were held on Friday, reached 41 percent.

The voting began at 8:00 am local time (0430 GMT) at 59,000 polling stations across Iran, with more than 15,000 candidates competing for 290 seats in the Iranian parliament and 144 candidates vying for positions at the eight-year-term Assembly of Experts, an 88-member body that oversees the activities of Iran's supreme leader and is empowered to designate and dismiss the supreme leader.

The voting was initially scheduled to end at 6:00 pm local time but was extended three times, with each extension lasting for two hours.

Vahidi said 25 million of the total 61.17 million people eligible to vote took part in the two elections and that blank ballots accounted for solely 5 percent of the entire votes.

He added that a total of 245 candidates were elected in the first round of the parliamentary election, and 88 individuals won their seats in the Assembly of Experts, noting that the country should gradually brace for the second round of the parliamentary election scheduled for late April.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Tehran.
(XHTV)