March 16, 2008 12:55

Iran: Voter Turnout Slump Continues

The election returns from Iran are favoring conservatives over reformists, but as expected, conservative pragmatists opposed to hard-line President Ahmadinejad seem to be making important inroads toward influence in the next Iranian parliament.

Perhaps the more immediate result of the balloting on Friday is the possible slump in voter turnout. The Iranian regime regards high turnouts as proof of the Islamic Republic's power and legitimacy. But despite a very aggressive voter turnout effort led by Supreme Leader Ayatullah Khamenei himself, the result may not be very impressive. The turnout trend has been downward since the regime's hardline supervisory bodies, like the Guardian Council, began disqualifying large numbers of reformist candidates in the 2004 majlis election.

According to the Iranian news service IRNA tonight, quoting Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, 22.8 million Iranians voted in the election. As in the past, when various factions cried tampering with the figures, there seems to be some disagreement about what percentage of the overall vote that constitutes. Pour-Mohammadi said 60%, others says 65%.

The number of voters dropped since the 2004 parliamentary election, when a reported 23.7 million Iranians cast their ballots. That's about 1 million fewer voters this year.

The 2004 figure represented a dramatic decline from the 2000 parliament election, due to the fact that the public became disillusioned by all the candidate disqualifications. In the 2000 election, by contrast, which was swept by reformists, 26.8 million Iranians voted.

That was in line with the enthusiastic turnouts for reformist President Mohammed Khatami's election landslides in 1997 and 2001, when 28.1 million and 29 million Iranians reportedly participated at the polls. Khatami received 20.7 million and 21.6 million votes, respectively.

In the 2005 presidential election won by Ahmadinejad, the turnout was again high, at 29 million. But his draw was anemic compared to Khatami's performances in past elections. Ahmadinejad polled 5.7 million votes in the first round, and in the second round required because there was no constitutional winner in the first round, he polled 17.2 million in a two-man race.

The message of the Iranian electorate seems to be that without more competitive elections in which reformists are permitted to fully participate, apathy is in danger of becoming a trend. That, in turn, will be bad news for a regime that holds up voter participation as proof of unequivocal support for the Islamic system of government.

-By Scott MacLeod/Cairo