Key Points
The election is the first formal measure of public opinion after anti-government protests in 2022-23 spiralled into some of the worst political turmoil since the 1979 Islamic Revolution...
Iranians voted for a new parliament on Friday in an election seen as a test of the clerical establishment's legitimacy at a time of growing frustration over economic woes and restrictions on political and social freedoms...
The parliament, dominated for over two decades by political hardliners within the religious Islamic Republic, has negligible impact on foreign policy or a nuclear programme that Iran says is peaceful but the West says is aimed at making nuclear arms - issues determined by Khamenei...
Many analysts say large numbers of Iranians no longer think the ruling clerics capable of solving an economic crisis caused by a mix of mismanagement, corruption and U.S. sanctions - reimposed since 2018 when Washington ditched Tehran's nuclear pact with six world powers..
The election comes at a time of huge tension in the Middle East, as Israel fights the Iranian-backed Palestinian Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, and other groups backed by Tehran attacking ships in the Red Sea and Israeli and US targets in the region...
