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Iran starts parliamentary run-off elections

Xinhua, April 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

The second round of the 10th Majlis (parliament) elections in Iran began on Friday to choose parliamentarians for the remaining 69 vacant seats.

On Wednesday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called on the nation to actively participate in the run-off elections as they did in the first round of elections on Feb. 26.

In the first round of the elections, 221 out of the 290 seats were filled and the fate of 69 others will be decided in the run-off contests with 138 candidates in 21 provinces out of 31.

According to data available from the local media, the reformists and moderates gained ground in Iran's recent vote for Majlis, but none of the heavy weight political groups have been able to seize the majority in the first round.

In capital Tehran, all the 30 seats available in the Majlis have gone to the reformists and moderates.

In the ninth Majlis elections on March 2012, the principlists or the loyalists to Iran's Supreme Leader and powerful clerics had won the majority of about 75 percent in the first round of elections.

Earlier, the Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said that the turnout, out of about 55 million eligible voters, was around 50 percent in the capital Tehran and some 62 percent across the country in the first round of the elections.

The turnout in the first round of parliamentary elections in the country in 2012 was more than 64 percent out of some 48 million eligible voters. Endit