PHOTO: A woman votes in Rabat Karim, southwest of Tehran, on Friday (AFP)


Centrists and reformists have won another unexpected victory in Iran’s Parliamentary elections, likely becoming the largest bloc in the next Majlis.

The centrist-reformist List of Hope won about half of the 68 run-off votes on Friday for the 290-seat Parliament. The remainder were split between conservatives, who have dominated the Majlis since 2004, and independents.

Because the affiliation of some new MPs is unclear, there is no exact count of the strength of each bloc. However, almost all estimates put the centrist-reformist bloc ahead, but without a majority. Independents will hold the balance of power.

AFP gave the List of Hope 131 seats, with conservatives at 124. Fars News, which is affiliated to the Revolutionary Guards, continued to insist that conservatives would have a plurality with 126 seats and only 112 for centrist-reformists.

Most observers believed that the List of Hope would not perform as well as it had in the February 26 first round, when it unexpectedly won a large minority of seats despite the banning of thousands of candidates by the Guardian Council and a campaign — led by the Supreme Leader and the Revolutionary Guards — warning of foreign-led “sedition”. Analysts said vote turnout would be much lower because of less interest, benefiting the conservatives.

However, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday that turnout was 59%, close to the participation in the first ballot.

The outcome is a boost for President Rouhani, who has been under pressure from leading elements of the regime since the first vote. The Supreme Leader has led warnings that the US is undermining the implementation of the July 2015 nuclear deal, and has cautioned that he could take control of economic policy from the Government.

Rouhani still has to present the 2016/17 budget to Parliament for approval, after four months of delays because of the nuclear agreement and the elections. The Government also has to submit a 2016-2020 National Development Plan.