Voters in Iran continue to vote to elect a new president to replace the current president, Hassan Rouhani, at a time when political leaders urged the people to vote massively, despite the circumstances the country is going through.
The Ministry of Interior announced that more than 66,000 polling stations opened their doors to citizens this morning throughout the country, to participate in the presidential elections. Read also After the presidential race ends, will Iran’s external features change? What do Iranian youth expect from presidential candidates? How does the Iranian street view the presidential elections? Do electoral promises succeed in saving the Iranian economy?
Al-Jazeera
And competing in the presidential elections are 4 candidates from the conservative and moderate currents, they are: the head of the Judicial Council, Ibrahim Raisi, who is described as the most fortunate, and the former director of the Central Bank, Abdel Nasser Hemmati, in addition to Mohsen Rezaei and Qazizadeh Hashemi.
About 59 million voters are entitled to participate in the poll, and the popular participation rate is the most prominent challenge in these elections, and voting continues until midnight local time.
The head of the Iranian judiciary and presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi called on Iranians to participate in the presidential elections, even if they are upset with the current conditions in the country, as he described it.
Raisi added – in a statement after casting his vote in Shahr-e Rei (south of Tehran) – that he is committed to all his electoral promises, noting that not participating in the elections will not solve the country’s problems.
Raisi’s campaign filed a complaint with the Electoral Publicity Committee, noting that a number of polling stations have witnessed disruption since the centers opened this morning, while the Iranian Interior Minister said that the voting process continues and has not stopped since the centers were opened.
Celebration of our people
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei cast his vote as polls opened in Imam Khomeini’s Hosseiniya in Tehran.
After casting his vote, Khamenei said, “I call on the Iranian people to participate in the presidential elections and decide the country’s future,” considering that the people will decide the fate of the country for the coming years through their participation.
Khamenei added that what the people decide today “will set the basic lines of their destiny for the coming years. It is wise for everyone to participate in deciding their destiny, and I invite them to do so. Each vote in itself is important, and it will affect your future, and we hope that this day will turn into a day of celebration for our people.” . https://imasdk.googleapis.com/js/core/bridge3.467.0_en.html#goog_1696491152
For his part, President Rouhani urged Iranians to participate in the presidential elections, and said that “Iran’s enemies” want the turnout to be low, and asked his citizens not to allow this to happen.
He added, “If we have criticisms, we must put them aside now, and focus on participation. The failure of a certain party to perform its work as required should not prevent us from participating in the elections.”
The moderate candidate in the Iranian presidential elections, Abdel Nasser Hemmati, said that he would end the international isolation that Iran is experiencing if he wins the elections.
After casting his vote, Hemmati added that Iranians have the right to improve their living and economic conditions, stressing that the next president should focus on promoting development.
The former reformist president of Iran, Mohammad Khatami, cast his vote in the Iranian presidential elections in Hosseiniya Jamaran (north of Tehran).
Khatami, one of the most prominent figures of reformists in Iran, called on Iranian citizens to participate massively in the elections to thwart any scheme that contradicts the concept of the republic, as he put it.
Yesterday, Iran entered electoral silence after the end of the propaganda campaigns that extended for 3 weeks, and these elections come in light of an economic and social crisis caused mainly by US sanctions, and exacerbated by the Corona pandemic.