Iran Urges Voters to Take Part in Friday's Presidential Election

Posters of Iranian presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi are seen in Tehran on June 14, 2021. (AFP)
Posters of Iranian presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi are seen in Tehran on June 14, 2021. (AFP)
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Iran Urges Voters to Take Part in Friday's Presidential Election

Posters of Iranian presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi are seen in Tehran on June 14, 2021. (AFP)
Posters of Iranian presidential candidate Ebrahim Raisi are seen in Tehran on June 14, 2021. (AFP)

Iran's president appealed to voters to set aside their grievances and take part in a presidential election on Friday that record numbers of people are expected to boycott due to economic hardship and frustration with hardline rule.

Hardline judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi and moderate former Central Bank governor Abdolnasser Hemmati are the main contenders after the hardline Guardian Council disqualified several prominent candidates from running and others quit.

President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, urged Iranians on Thursday, as campaigning ended, not to let the “shortcomings of an institution or a group” keep them from voting, an apparent reference to the Guardian Council.

"For the time being, let's not think about grievances tomorrow," Rouhani said in televised remarks.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has already urged people to turn out in large numbers, saying that would help avert foreign pressures on Tehran.

Official opinion polls suggest turnout could be as low as 41%, significantly lower than in past elections.

In addition to anger over the disqualification of prominent moderates, grievances include economic hardship exacerbated by US sanctions as well as official corruption, mismanagement, and a crackdown on protests in 2019 triggered by rising fuel prices.

The accidental shooting down of a Ukrainian plane in Iran in January last year which killed 176 also undermined public trust.

“Voting would be an insult to my intelligence,” 55-year-old Fatemeh said, declining to give her second name for fear of reprisals. “Raisi has already been selected by the government regardless who we vote for.”

Prominent dissidents inside and outside the country have called on fellow Iranians to snub the election, including exiled former crown prince Reza Pahlavi and opposition leader Mirhossein Mousavi, under house arrest since 2011.

On the other hand, many leading reformists have rallied behind Hemmati, including former President Mohammad Khatami, arguing that a massive boycott would guarantee a Raisi win.

Under the Iranian Constitution, the supreme leader, elected for life and responsible for choosing six of the 12-member Guardian Council, holds most of the powers of the state.

Polling stations open at 7 a.m. local time and close at 2 am on Saturday. The interior minister told state TV that due to the Covid-19 pandemic, voting will take place outside at 67,000 sites across the country, with social distancing and the donning of face masks. Voters are asked to bring their own pens.



Ukraine Set to Sign Minerals Deal, Trump Confirms Zelenskiy Visit

 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during a press conference, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine February 26, 2025. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during a press conference, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine February 26, 2025. (Reuters)
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Ukraine Set to Sign Minerals Deal, Trump Confirms Zelenskiy Visit

 Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during a press conference, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine February 26, 2025. (Reuters)
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy speaks during a press conference, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine February 26, 2025. (Reuters)

Ukraine said on Wednesday it was set to approve a framework minerals deal with the United States but that its success would depend on talks with President Donald Trump.

The deal, under which Kyiv would hand some revenue from its mineral resources to a fund jointly controlled by the US, is central to Ukrainian attempts to win strong support from Trump as he seeks a quick end to Russia's war, with US-Russian talks that have so far excluded Kyiv set to continue on Thursday.

Trump confirmed Zelenskiy would visit Washington on Friday although there was no sign that Kyiv had won the security guarantees it has been seeking as part of the deal, cast by Trump as a payment for US aid to Kyiv during the war.

"This agreement could be part of future security guarantees... an agreement is an agreement, but we need to understand the broader vision," Zelenskiy said in Kyiv.

He said the most important thing was the current draft did not cast Ukraine as a debtor that would have to pay back hundreds of billions of dollars for past military assistance.

"This deal could be a great success or it could pass quietly. And the big success depends on our conversation with President Trump."

He said it would be a success if the US becomes a provider of security guarantees for Ukraine, which wants protection from future Russian attacks if a peace deal is reached.

Fighting has continued in Ukraine during the flurry of diplomacy, with Ukraine frequently coming under attack from Russian missiles and drones in Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two.

QUESTIONS OVER WASHINGTON TRIP

Trump said on Tuesday that Zelenskiy wanted to come to Washington on Friday to sign a "very big deal".

Zelenskiy said both sides were still working on organizing the visit and a White House official on Wednesday raised doubts about whether the visit would go ahead, but Trump later said again that Zelenskiy would visit on Friday.

Trump has been fiercely critical of Zelenskiy as he upended US policy on the war, calling him a "dictator" and ending a campaign to isolate Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Trump spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 12 and a Russian-US meeting took place in Saudi Arabia on February 18.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russian and US diplomats would meet in Istanbul on Thursday to discuss resolving bilateral disputes that are part of a wider dialogue the sides see as crucial to ending the Ukraine war.

Lavrov again ruled out "any options" for European peacekeepers being sent to Ukraine although Trump has said some form of peacekeeping troops are needed in Ukraine if an agreement to end the conflict is struck.

"Nobody has asked us about this," Lavrov said during a visit to Qatar.

'PRELIMINARY' AGREEMENT

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Washington would commit to supporting Kyiv's efforts to obtain security guarantees under the finalized deal, though the Americans offered no security pledges of their own.

Shmyhal said Ukraine's government would authorize the agreed wording later on Wednesday so that it could be signed. He described it as a "preliminary" agreement.

"After the Ukrainian president and the US president agree on security guarantees, agree on how we tie this preliminary agreement to security guarantees from the United States for our country, in the presence of (both) presidents, a representative of the Ukrainian government will sign this preliminary agreement," he said.

In a comment aimed at calming the fears of worried Ukrainians, Shmyhal said Ukraine would never "sign or consider ... a colonial treaty that did not take into account the interests of the state."

A copy of a draft agreement, seen by Reuters and dated February 25, said: "The Government of the United States of America supports Ukraine's efforts to obtain security guarantees needed to establish lasting peace."

Shmyhal, outlining the agreement in televised comments, said Kyiv would contribute 50% of "all proceeds received from the future monetization of all relevant state-owned natural resource assets and relevant infrastructure."

Those proceeds would go into a fund under the joint control of the United States and Ukraine, he said, adding that no decision about the governance of the fund could be taken without Kyiv's agreement.

"Already existing deposits, facilities, licenses and rents are not subject to discussion when creating this fund," he added.