Financial Times:

It makes little difference what promises parliamentary candidates make to 34-year-old cab driver Mehdi. Badly beaten in the protests that convulsed Iran late last year amid anger at rising fuel prices, he has lost what little faith he had in the Islamic republic or its elected MPs to improve the lives of citizens.

“Ordinary people like me are so disillusioned . . . that I think whoever is elected will eventually raise up their hands in surrender against the economic and political decisions of the system,” said Mehdi, a driver for Snapp, the Iranian version of Uber, in the ancient city of Isfahan ahead of parliamentary polls on Friday.

Famous for its Islamic architecture, the city — so beautiful that Iranians describe it as “half the world” — bears signs of both the November protests, in which activists allege 20 died in Isfahan alone, and the upcoming polls that reformists fear will lead to the creation of a radical new assembly.

In between the burnt-out banks, Mehdi reads out slogans from campaign posters as he drives past: “The pain must be talked about, voices must be heard”; “Economic boom with clean-handed [candidates]”; “Collective genius, revolutionary belief”. These “slogans may fool confused voters but not those like me who have made up their minds”, said Mehdi, adding that MPs did little to stand up for protesters or help ordinary people.

Four out of five of Isfahan’s parliamentary seats are held by reformists but in Friday’s election, it has only one reformist candidate — Nahid Tajeddin, a sitting MP. With hardliners eager to use the parliamentary polls to shape a radical new assembly ahead of next year’s presidential election, Iran’s Guardian Council, the constitutional watchdog that vets prospective candidates, has disqualified hundreds of reformist candidates, including a quarter of sitting MPs. A landslide victory for hardliners is seen as inevitable.

This mass disqualification has fed disillusionment in Isfahan, even as Ms Tajeddin has sought to rally the reformist vote. A meeting last weekend drew only two dozen attendees. A member of her campaign team sought to persuade people that a vote for her was important to prevent hardliners monopolising parliament. Hossein, an active campaigner for reformist candidates over the past two decades, is less convinced.

“The Islamic republic will not reform itself any more. It has to be forced to accept political changes through civil disobedience,” Hossein said, refusing even to set foot in the campaign headquarters of Ms Tajeddin for whom he had enthusiastically campaigned in the 2016 parliamentary polls. “The first step starts with an election boycott,” he added.

With voters complaining about unemployment, water shortages and declining purchasing power, hardliners are also struggling to muster enthusiasm for their candidates. “It is difficult to make a person who cannot afford a piece of bread for his family’s dinner to go to the poll, let alone vote for our favourite candidate,” said one volunteer.

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