Nima Sharif
Right around this time every year, Iranians start preparing for their new year celebrations (No Rooz) which is on 21 March. The festivity, observing the end of winter and beginning of spring and the Persian traditional New Year, celebrates life and brings joy and happiness to Iranian homes and it also brings a lot of shopping crowd to the streets.
That was not the case last Friday.
Considering the fact that Friday is weekend in Iran and at a time just a week away from No Rooz, the streets of Tehran and other cities were unusually quiet.
Where was everyone?
On Friday 14 March, the Iranian regime, once again devised a parliamentary (Majlis) election. Far from any real democratic election norms that you may have in mind, the candidates were actually hand picked by the ruling clergy in advance of the election.