President Hassan Rouhani today added that enthusiastic voter queues would upset the United States and potentially force it to the negotiating table. The Guardian Council's extensive disqualification of well-known reformist and moderate candidates has contributed to expectations of voter apathy. This gives the advantage to conservative 'principlists' ('usulgarayan').
Many front-running candidates may fail to meet the 20% threshold for elections, leading to multiple second-round votes on April 17.
Though moderates control the interior ministry, which calculates votes, extremely low turnout might boost pressure to fuzz the numbers.
As in previous years, the 2021 presidential election is likely to follow the trends emerging from this round of parliamentary polls.
