Iran: Election results do not bode well for Christian minority

Iran’s hardliners have again won the parliamentary elections which took place on 1 March 2024. Voter turnout reached an historic low at 41% (BBC News, 5 March 2024) and it is estimated that it was as low as 24% in the capital, Tehran (DW, 3 March 2024).

“It seems that only the core supporters of the regime showed up”, comments World Watch Research analyst Michael Bosch. “In addition, 8% of the votes were declared void, with many of those votes believed to have gone to former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was disqualified from running (AGSIW, 6 March 2024). Many other candidates were also disqualified from running by the hardline-dominated Guardian Council, including previous Reformist president, Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani was seeking re-election to the Assembly of Experts, the government body that selects the Supreme Leader, for which elections were held at the same time. No clear motives were provided for his disqualification, but it is telling that even someone as eminent as Rouhani could be disqualified (The Guardian, 25 January 2024). These were the first elections after the protests in 2022 and 2023 that followed the death of Mahsa Amini under the banner ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’, and it seems that the regime went to great lengths to minimize the possibility of any potentially critical voice being officially elected.”

Michael Bosch continues: “Although the election results are not surprising, they do not bode well for Iran’s Christians. It is very likely that the regime will continue to persecute them, both as part of the general crackdown on all those who might oppose the regime and for religious reasons. In this respect, a recent joint-report by Article 18, CSW, Middle East Concern and Open Doors highlighted the ‘faceless victims’ of the regime’s persecution of Christians (Article Eighteen, 19 February 2024). In line with the increase of pressure on regime opponents, more and more arrested Christians are too afraid of the regime’s response if they are openly named as victims by international organizations. This shows that, despite the hopeful signs of early releases in 2023 and the Supreme Court’s November 2021 ruling that house-church activity was not an act against national security, the core of the regime consists of hardliners who are determined to stay in power at all costs and ultimately pull all strings.”