Iranians set to vote for president amid turnout concerns
After preparing everything to guarantee a victory for its preferred candidate, the ruling establishment is now attempting to draw the largely apathetic electorate to the ballot box.
Iran's hard-line leadership has in the past few days gone to great lengths to push the public toward the ballot box in Friday's presidential election to decide the "fate" of the country at "this critical juncture."
The competition, however, is seen as nothing short of an "engineered" race meant to guarantee a landslide for Ebrahim Raisi, the judiciary chief close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In his address to Iranians ahead of the vote, Khamenei urged a maximum turnout, saying the nation's "grievances and complaints" should not prompt a boycott. Any such decision, he said, is "wrong." He also accused foreign-based opposition media of conducting propaganda aimed at "discouraging" voters. The Iranian leader refused to address the pre-election purge of centrist and Reformist nominees at the hands of the unelected supervisory body, the Guardian Council, which only reports to him.
Similarly, President Hassan Rouhani, despite being vocal about the Guardian Council's approach, also called on Iranians to fulfill their "national duty" and "heat up" the election mood. In an allusion to the arrangements made by the hard-line body, Rouhani said, "Mistakes by a certain group" should not make them skip the balloting. Even some leaders of the Reformist movement have appealed to the nation to come out for the sake of "Iran" and to protect the "republic."
