Hello everyone, its 10 30 am in the iranian capital, youre watching press tv, world news and now its election day here in iran, people are heading to polls to cast their ballots for parliament and the assembly of experts. Voters are taking part in parliamentary election to choose 290. Members of of the legislative body, from over 15,0 candidates, elected members will serve a term of four years in the parliament, and in another election being held simultaneously, participants are voting for 88 members of the assembly of experts, deliberative body elected for eight years. Now this is a 12th parliamentary election and the sixth voting for assembly of experts since victory of irans islamic revolution. More than 61 Million People are eligible to. Vote vote that is for both elections, leader of irans islamic revolutions. Passed his ballot for the countrys parliamentary and assembly of experts elections, voted in the tehran constituency as soon as polls open throughout the nation on friday. من در انتخابات های گذشته هم گفتم امروز هم تر تاکید می کنم هرچه زودتر از این فرصت استفاده کنید در اولین ساعت در اولین ساعت ممکن برید رایتون رو در صندوق ها بیاندازید توصیه دوم این است که در هر حوزه ای به تعداد لازمه برای اون حوزه رأی بدید به کمتر رأی ندید. امروز چشم بسیاری از مردم دنیا چه آحاد مردم و چه افراد سیاسی و صاحبان جایگاه های معتبر ملی و سیاسی امروز چشمشون به ایرانه چشمشون به شماست میخوان ببینن که شما چه می کنید در این انتخابات و در. نتیجه انتخابات شما چه میشه هم دوستان ما افرادی که علاقه مند به ملت ایرانند هم بدخواهان اونا همین دوستان رو خوشحال کنید و بدخواهان رو ناامید کنید و اما پاسخ به سؤال ایشون که آخرین حرف من خطاب به مرددین چیه آخرین حرف من این است که در کار خیر حاجت هیچ استخاره نیست. And now were out in the field, we have multiple of correspondents at polling stations for the morning and uh to get us reports todays uh polling and voting uh habits, joining us is madhya on press Tv Correspondent in the iranian capital as well as gisu misha ahmadi. Of our correspondent at another uh station, i guess well start with you, matty, the latest where youre at and what the moods like so far . Well, daniel, as the time passes, more and more people. Show up to participate in the key elections. Now uh the thing is the difference between this years elections and the previous ones uh in Previous Years people had to show up with their birth certificates and then give it to the observers, they would stamp it to make sure that and did this process is was a little bit time consuming. Now uh from now on by only uh showing a lets say uh Identity Card they can easily um take their vote and this has facilitated the process of voting after um youre going to the polling stations, each person is given paper, voting paper like this, um, one part is for the parliament, the other one is for the assembly of experts and then they can write up to 30 candidates names with their codes uh for for uh the parliament and also up to 16. For the assembly of experts now um at the polling stations, as you can see, you can see here people uh casting their votes, writing the names and the codes of the candidates, it has been provided in booklets here uh they choose between um over 15,000 Parliament Candidates as well as 144 assembly of expert candidates, there are also qr codes um at the polling stations. Again facilitates the process of voting, making it easier for uh voters to uh find the codes assigned each candidate. The thing about this years election is that as the inter interior Ministry Announced couple of days ago, this years elections are very competitive and thats due to the high number of candidates that have been approved for for um participating in this years election. Now the process continues and we are still here and we will try to keep you updated. All right, good stuff uh, matty, thanks and were string over to gisu misha mid press Tv Correspondent at another polling station here in the iranian uh capital. Hey there gisu, good morning, hope youre safe and sound, what can you tell us where youre at . Well, danny, it is quite an exciting day in uh iran, whats again in the capital, tehran in particular, were located in husseina ershad, moscow, which is one of the main polling. Stations in the iranian capital, tehran. As you can see right behind me, uh, plenty of people have decided to come and vote in the early hours, which is uh usually unlikely for iranians, because there are last minute people, and you usually see crowds rushing to the police st, polling stations uh, right before the polling stations are about to close, which uh eventually leads to the interior ministry uh extending uh the time for voting, so as you can see by timmy people are here uh standing uh, they are checking the lists trying to pick the codes of the candidates that they want to elect for both the parliament and the assembly of experts. This is uh the table where they have access to all the codes. As mehdi also said this year we have quite a large number of candidates in tehran for the 30 seats of the parliament uh for the tehran constitution. We have 3,651 candidates competing, which is fierce competition, and lets not forget that there are also uh a large number of women uh candidates also participating, so let me walk you through whats happening here, basically uh when the voters enter the polling stations, the first thing they do is that they move to a desk where they have to provide their uh identification, now this year uh as opposed to Previous Year where they had to have uh their specific identification card with them, any card that indicates their identity, their national id number is acceptable, and the reason for that is because there is this specific uh Electronic Device that you can see right there, this lady is using right now, and this is how she checks the identity of the person who wants to vote, using their national id number, so its going to make it lot easier for iranians, because in previous times we did see a large number of people who for some reason traveling or whatever uh having loss or identification, it was uh not possible for them to vote. Now this problem has been solved now because uh right here at this next station, as you can see after their identification is uh confirmed. And based on that national id code, which is unique for every iranian, they receive their ballots and the ballots, as you can see uh is. To the table that i showed you, that is where they uh pick the uh candidates, they write down the codes and eventually this is where they come and place their ballots in the ballot boxes. Now we have the red one, which is for the uh Iranian Parliament and the blue one, which is for the assembly of experts and that is when they are able to get their national id card or whatever identification they have provided back, so basically this is the entire process, danny, if you have any questions, yeah, i sure do uh, guisu, i mean, when when uh, basically people have to sift through such huge pool of candidates, guisu, is there a literature where youre at, or have people already made up their minds following their favorite candidates or or through their ad campaigns before they uh come to the voting polls . Actually, because the large number of candidates, it was quite interesting to. Uh watch the campaigning activities this time around and the campaign trail for many of these candidates uh danny uh what they decided to do and how they decided to introduce themselves to the people, we had a large number of people who were uh not actually wellknown politicians, so uh they had daunting task of uh presenting themselves to the people and uh you know trying to. Get some attention and uh tell people what their intentions are and convince them to vote for them, and you know, danny, that in iran, uh, unlike many countries in the world, people do not vote for a specific Political Party, they vote for individuals, as you can see right here, they have to write down the names of individuals, and this is the reason uh, why i believe it makes it uh more flexible for the voters, because they can choose people. Despite uh there are different political views, you can choose uh people from different um Political Parties in the same ballot paper uh and as far as the campaigning is concerned, well the vote the candidates did have enough time until 8 oclock yesterday, that is 24 hours before uh polls opened uh they did have time for campaigning and of course uh those rallies and all the Campaign Activities that, well we are familiar with, it happens the same way any other place in the world, but another issue is that many of the Political Parties, like i said, because people dont vote for the parties, they vote for people, so many of those Political Parties have provided certain lists and in tehran there are about dozen lists that uh people can um choose from and check who these candid. It are uh, but i believe this time around is going to be very difficult for independence, because well, they will not have the support of a Political Party who would provide uh the information about them a particular list. All right, good stuff uh gisu, thanks for for that update, it was great, well talk to you soon, gisu misha ahmedi and press Tv Correspondents there joining us from separate uh polling stations uh voting booths. There in the iranian capital, you can see now four different images of four separate uh voting sites, one in the uh eastern iranian city of mashad, one western iranian city of kermonshah, the Southern City of shiraz and also esfahan there on your uh screens there, voting is underway in the country of iran today, over 61. 2 Million People are eligible to vote, a population of roughly 85 million, there are over 59,000 voating stations operational throughout the country today, just uh 5,000 in the iranian capital alone, now uh the voters will be choosing 290 law maker uh seats thats in iran refer to the magilist the Iranian Parliament and that will be to serve for the next four years, those seats and also 88 seats for the assembly of experts, which the assembly of experts are task with selecting the countrys leader and they will serve. Terms of eight years, now all of the candidates have been vetted by a constitutional body in iran known as the Guardian Council to determine their eligibility, and you heard our correspondents just share with us that its been an unprecedented pool of candidates over 15,000 for parliament alone, something in the 100 uh and a half for the assembly of experts for those 88. Seats there, um, these are a live images now coming uh from the southern iranian uh city of uh shiraz. Now a 3000 30 million of the uh qualified eligible voters, 30. 1 million are going to be men, 30. 2 million are to be uh women, according to announcement by irans election headquarters about 15,000 individuals have been confirmed eligible to compete in the 12th parliamentary elections, 12 of whom are women and 80 88 that is men and 144 individuals have been confirmed eligible to compete in the uh election for the 88 seats and the assembly of experts. Now its a 10 45 uh local time. In the iranian capital voting started at 8 a. M. And its usually constitutionally supposed to run for 10 hours, but extensions are uh permitted and its been common place that there has been extensions almost every voting cycle in the past. Well be following uh voting very closely here on press tv throughout the day here and the irans parliamentary and assembly of experts elections. And now condemnations are pouring in from throughout the world following Israeli Massacre of over 100 palestinians who are waiting for lifesaving humanitarian aid in northern gaza. Irans Foreign Ministry spokesman described the attack on defenseless civilians as barbaric. Noser canani said shame of supporting and remaining silent towards israely genocide will remain with false champions of human rights in the us and europe. Meanwhile the un a chief. Express shock at the incident. Martin griffith said hes appalled at the killing of hundreds of people during the transfer of aid supplies in gaza. The un secretary general antonio gruterras also denounced a deadly attack. The secretary general condemns the incident today in northern gaza in which more than 100 people were reportedly killed or injured while seeking life saving aid. The desperate civilians in gaza. The Palestinian Ambassador to the un urged the Security Council to condemn the massacre. Riyad mansur said, as long as council is paralyzed, palestinians will lose their lives. Turkey said massacre proves israel is consciously and collectively destroying the palestinian people. The colombian president Gustavo Petro described the attack as genocide, saying his country has now suspended all purchases of weapons from israel. The Canadian Foreign minister called israels killing of palestinians in gaza nightmare. Spain also slammed the gaza massacre as unacceptable, while france called it unjustified. A draft proposal has been released as a result of extensive talks in paris over potential cease fire in gaza. One of the conditions exclusively prevents displaced men of military age from returning to their homes in northern gaza. Correspondent mi abu musab has spoken to some palestinians and dearalah about the cease fire conditions, this proposal is null and meaningless to me, im married and have kids, i cant let them go back to gaza while i am still here, we prefer to die here rather than accepting this proposal, we demand the permanent cease fire that guarantees our full return to our residential areas in gaza, un doubt. Its another pressure exerted on the palestinian resistance, this is another pressure practice against us, they know that the displaced families are not going to accept it, no one accepts to abandon the rest of his family and go back without them, they propose it just to blackmail us, i wont accept going back to gaza without my husband and my mother wont accept that return without my brothers, we fled our homes in gaza together and we will return together, its impossible to accept such thing. Our men raise our kids day by day until they grow up. We spend these horrific days worrying about our children and young men. We escaped the kill. In gaza to protect them, we cant leave them and get back, we leave together or we die together, no one would accept it, its unnegotiable, we are still steadfast until we go back in dignity, its definitely rejected, we have been displaced from gaza for the sake of our children safety, they killed thousands of our children and our men and they destroyed our homes and buildings, but now they propose us to go back without our sons and men, no. Human being would agree on this, this proposal means that israel is procrastinating and it dogs having a real deal, netan yaho is a war criminal and he wants to prolig this war against us, firstly this proposal is completely rejected, its a continuation of the expulsion that took place at the beginning of this war in gaza, they want to separate the families and increase their suffering, they want the women and children to go to gaza while keeping the men here so they can target them any moment under any. Text, this is another way that Israel Occupation progress in its putting the ciesfire deal in place in order to continue its genocide in gazah and now were going to go back to one of the polling stations in the iranian capital we were joined earlier by gisu misha ahmadi and with her irani Vice PresidentSayid Muhammad what can you share with us well danny like i said were in a Police Station with which is actually very crowded uh and a large number of uh uh important people also uh come here to vote and that is how i got access to the Vice President for Parliamentary Affairs, mr. Said muhammad hossaini who was now standing right behind me so we will have the chance to talk to him exactly about how important these elections are and of course first of all why is the parliament important in the Islamic Republic of iran in the first place mr. And by questioning and supervising the affairs of the government and so it has very important position and our mindless is very different from the uh parliaments which are by camera. In some countries the president can dissolve the parliament and call for snap elections, but we have the 12 medalists being formed and every four years and theres been no parliament that has been incomplete, and all the parliaments have continued the work until the very end and the resolutions of the parliament cannot be dismissed, but. And issue that must would require further explanation for our viewers is that in most the countries that hold elections, these elections are partisan and people vote for parties, but here we have lists, exactly, well its its a live report, unexpected things happen danny. Uh, anyhow, i wanted to ask him about the fact that in iran uh, people dont necessarily vote for Political Parties, but they vote for people. In some organizations in iran, but they do not have a monopoly. Any person in iran can become a nominee, can become a candidate anyone who is educated and. So in other countries we see that some special some people have a monopoly over this and this position is restricted to certain people and in some others we see oil