(Tehran) Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Tuesday called for “high participation” in Friday’s presidential election to replace Ebrahim Raïssi, who died in a helicopter accident in May.
“We emphasize the importance of high participation (in the elections), because it is the pride of the Islamic Republic,” Ayatollah Khamenei declared during a televised speech three days before the election.
“Every time people’s participation in elections has been low, the enemies of the Islamic Republic have blamed us,” he added.
Voters have a choice of six candidates, who were selected by the Council of Guardians of the Constitution, an unelected body dominated by conservatives, from among 80 people who filed their candidacy.
Three of them are presented as the favorites: the conservative President of Parliament Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, the former ultraconservative nuclear negotiator Saïd Jalili and the reformist MP Massoud Pezeshkian.
During the last presidential election, in 2021, the government invalidated many reformists and moderates, which allowed Ebrahim Raïssi, the candidate of the conservative camp, to be easily elected and succeed moderate President Hassan Rouhani.
Turnout reached only 49%, the lowest rate for a presidential election since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Former reformist president Mohammad Khatami (1997 to 2005) announced on Tuesday that he would vote on Friday and called for a vote for Mr. Pezeshkian.
“I did not vote in the previous elections and I agreed with the majority that there were no ears to hear their voice and no hands to solve their problems,” he said. -he declared in a video message broadcast by the reformist daily Etemad.
But “there is now an opportunity which, I hope, will allow the voice of the majority to be heard”, he added, describing the reform candidate as “honest, just, popular, in search of justice and anti Corruption “.
In his speech, Mr. Khamenei criticized, without naming names, “some politicians” in Iran who “think that all paths to progress go through the United States,” the country that Iran considers its enemy.
Mr. Pezeshkian called for improving relations with Washington in order to lift the harsh sanctions imposed by the United States which are weighing heavily on the Iranian economy.
The Iranian presidential election is closely scrutinized on the international scene while Tehran is a major player in the Middle East, against a backdrop of war in Gaza and concerns over its nuclear program.