Name of Armenian MP Elected from Tehran Revealed
Ara Shahverdyan has been elected as the representative of Armenians from Tehran and other northern provinces in the 11th convocation of Iran's parliament, having garnered 65% of the votes. This information was reported by the Armenian newspaper 'Alic' website.
The distribution of votes among Armenian voters from Tehran, Tabriz, Urmia, Arak, Sari, Gorgan, and Anzali was as follows:
- Ara Shahverdyan – 3,498 votes
- Aris Shahbazyan – 1,312 votes
- Albert Poghosyan – 291 votes
- Sevan Sohrayi – 174 votes
The spokesperson for Iran's Central Election Commission, Seyyed Ismaeil Mousavi, announced that the process of counting votes in the parliamentary elections is currently underway and expressed hope that the final results would be published on Sunday, as reported by Tasnim.
"After the counting of ballots at the polling stations, the results will be communicated to the Central Election Commission. We will inform the public about the results from each polling station in accordance with the election results," he stated.
Mousavi expressed hope that a significant number of polling station results will be published on Saturday, noting that results from major cities would be announced on Sunday.
Parliamentary elections started in Iran the day before, with approximately 7,000 candidates vying for more than 290 parliamentary seats. The elections were held at 208 polling stations across Iran, with 29 million 39 thousand 152 male voters and 28 million 879 thousand 6 female voters.
Five seats in Iran's parliament are reserved for religious and ethnic minorities, including two for ethnic Armenians living in Iran, and one each for Assyrians and Jews. There are no obstacles for Sunni representatives in the parliament, and currently there are 24 Sunni representatives.
Members of parliament are elected by popular vote for a term of four years. The new parliament of Iran will commence its work at the end of May 2020.