Iranian Elections
Vetted candidatesAS OF 2026-08-30 · 51 CONTESTS · presidential snap election, 5 July 2024 · WIKIPEDIA, NATIONAL ELECTORAL AUTHORITIES
Next election · Majlis election, expected 2028 · Capital · Tehran in the metro rankings →
Iran's presidential record since 1980 and its parliamentary record since the Constitutional Revolution of 1906: a Majlis that forced a constitution out of a shah and was then bombarded, half a century of elections the court controlled, the single-party assembly of 1975, and the republic in which voters choose from a field an unelected council has already cut down.
Source: Wikipedia election articles · as of 2026-08-30
Majlis seats
290
including five reserved for religious minorities
Contests on file
51
March 2024
40.6%
the lowest turnout the republic has recorded
Presidential elections
Iran's presidential elections since 1980, newest first. Every one of them was fought on a field the Guardian Council had already cut down, which is what the restricted label on each row means.
Disqualification and abstention · 2017–2024
Turnout has fallen at every presidential election since 2017 as the Guardian Council has narrowed the field further each time. Ebrahim Raisi was elected in 2021 on the lowest turnout in four decades, died in a helicopter crash in May 2024, and the snap election that followed drew under 40% in its first round.
The Ahmadinejad years · 2005–2013
A conservative outsider won the 2005 runoff and was returned in 2009 in the most disputed election in the republic's history, which produced the largest street protests since 1979. Hassan Rouhani's win in 2013 turned on the negotiations that became the nuclear deal.
Reconstruction and reform · 1989–2001
Rafsanjani rebuilt the economy after the war and Mohammad Khatami won in 1997 with 69% on a reformist platform and a turnout of 80%, the largest mandate the office has recorded. What the presidency could not do with it became the argument of the next twenty years.
The first republic · 1980–1985
Four presidential elections in six years, because the first two presidents did not survive their terms: Abolhassan Banisadr was impeached and fled the country in 1981, and Mohammad-Ali Rajai was killed by a bomb two months after replacing him. The war with Iraq ran through all of it.
Majlis elections
Every Majlis election from the Constitutional Revolution of 1906, newest first. The 1975 assembly returned a single party in every seat and is marked as what it was.
The Islamic Republic · 1980–2024
Twelve elections to the Majlis since the revolution, contested between factions rather than parties and fought on a field the Guardian Council draws before the campaign starts. Reformists won a landslide in 2000 and were largely barred from the ballot by 2004; turnout has fallen from 71% in 1996 to about 41% in 2024, the lowest the republic has recorded.
Coalition Council of Islamic Revolution Forces 107People's Alliance of Islamic Revolution 79Voice of the Nation 47
United Front of Principlists 133Reformists Front 13Justice Discourse 9others 135
Principlists 195Reformists 51others 44
Principlists 196Reformists 47others 47
Combatant Clergy Association and allies 110Combatant Clerics of Tehran and allies 80Executives of Construction Party and allies 80
Combatant Clergy Association and allies 150Independents 120
Unknown 100others 170
Independents 140Islamic Republican Party 130
Independents 140Islamic Republican Party 85Islamic Republican Party allies 45
One party · 1975
In 1975 the Shah abolished the two tame parties he had allowed and declared the Rastakhiz Party the only legal one, telling Iranians who disagreed to leave the country. It won all 268 seats. The revolution was four years away.
Under the Pahlavis · 1923–1971
Reza Khan used the army to shape the 1923 elections and the court managed every one that followed. The interlude is 1943 to 1953, when occupation and then Mosaddegh's National Front made the Majlis briefly matter again; the 1953 coup ended it, parties were banned from the 1954 election, and the 1960 result was so openly rigged that the Shah annulled it.
Iran Novin Party 230People's Party 37Independents 1
Iran Novin Party 180People's Party 31Pan-Iranist Party 5
Iran Novin Party 140Independents 44People's Party 16
Party of Nationalists 69People's Party 64Independents 31
Nationalists' Party 71People's Party 36Independents 20
Progress Party 122Independent 14
The Constitutional Revolution · 1906–1921
Persia's first parliament was won in 1906 by a merchant and clerical alliance that forced a constitution out of the Qajar shah. It was bombarded and dissolved two years later, restored, and then squeezed between Russian and British occupation zones until the coup of 1921.
The long arc in charts
Hover any point for the exact figure.
Presidential turnout
From 80% in 1997 to 48% in 2021 and under 40% in the first round of 2024. The line falls fastest where the field was cut hardest.
The winner's decisive-round share
Landslides are normal when the alternatives have been removed: 94.5% in 1989, 69% in 1997, 72% in 2021. The exceptions are the elections that went to a runoff.
Records & superlatives
Highest presidential turnout
85.2%
2009
Lowest presidential turnout
39.9%
2024
Narrowest win
52.5%
Hassan Rouhani, 2013
Most seats won
۲۳۰
Iran Novin Party, 1971
Seats to one party in 1975
268
every seat in the Majlis, to the only legal party in the country
Presidential turnout, 1997 to 2024
80% to 40%
Khatami drew four in five voters; the 2024 snap election drew two in five
How Iranian elections work
The Guardian Council decides who may stand
Twelve jurists, half of them appointed by the Supreme Leader, vet every candidate for the presidency and the Majlis before a vote is held. In 2021 they disqualified more than six hundred presidential applicants, including every woman who registered, and approved seven. That is why every contest on this page is marked as a restricted field.
A president who is not the head of state
The president runs the government and is directly elected for four years, twice at most. The Supreme Leader commands the armed forces, appoints the judiciary and half the Guardian Council, and is chosen by an Assembly of Experts whose own candidates the Guardian Council vets. The presidency is a real office with a ceiling.
Factions, not parties
Iranian elections are contested by lists and coalitions that form for one campaign and dissolve after it, which is why the tables here name alliances such as the List of Hope or the Coalition Council rather than parties. Reading them as a party system will mislead you.
Turnout as the opposition's ballot
With the field pre-selected, the number that moves is participation. It ran at 80% for Khatami in 1997 and 41% for the Majlis in 2024, after reformist organisations called for a boycott and the outgoing president called the low figure a blow to the republic's opponents.