Khomeini’s Grandson Warns of 'Illegitimate' Government

 Hassan Khomeini during a speech in Tehran on Monday (Jamaran news agency)
Hassan Khomeini during a speech in Tehran on Monday (Jamaran news agency)
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Khomeini’s Grandson Warns of 'Illegitimate' Government

 Hassan Khomeini during a speech in Tehran on Monday (Jamaran news agency)
Hassan Khomeini during a speech in Tehran on Monday (Jamaran news agency)

Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the founding leader of the Iranian regime, strongly criticized the electoral process following the rejection of dozens of requests to run in the upcoming electoral race.

“The people’s vote is a condition for the legitimacy of the system,” Khomeini told a crowd of Iranians on Monday, adding that a government that does not enjoy general acceptance “has no legitimacy.”

“We cannot choose some [candidates] and ask people to vote for them,” he underlined.

Meanwhile, presidential candidate, Mohsen Mehralizadeh, called on his electoral opponent, Ebrahim Raisi, to submit his resignation from the post of chief justice, or to withdraw from the presidential race.

News sites close to the reformist movement circulated on Monday a photo of a letter sent by Mehralizadeh to the head of the Reform Front, Behzad Nabawi, in which he called for a meeting with the reformist movement leaders to present his presidential program.

After its nine candidates were rejected, the Reform Front said that it had no candidate to present in the elections, while Mehralizadeh would compete with the former Central Bank Chairman Abdolnasser Hemmati, to win the reformists’ support. The latter pledged to form a government of technocrats.

The Iranian Election Commission said that it had filed a lawsuit against the IRGC news agency, FARS, for leaking the list of candidates for the presidential elections last week, a few hours after the Guardian Council confirmed that the final list had been sent to the Ministry of the Interior.

In a statement on Monday, the head of the commission, Jamal Arf, said: “After the names of the seven candidates were announced by (FARS) Agency, we filed a complaint against the agency. FARS officials should tell us where they got the information from.”



Vatican Cancels Pope’s Weekend Engagements as He Battles ‘Complex’ Infection 

Pedestrians walk past the statue of Pope John Paul II outside the Gemelli hospital where Pope Francis is hospitalized for tests and treatment for an infection in Rome, on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
Pedestrians walk past the statue of Pope John Paul II outside the Gemelli hospital where Pope Francis is hospitalized for tests and treatment for an infection in Rome, on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
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Vatican Cancels Pope’s Weekend Engagements as He Battles ‘Complex’ Infection 

Pedestrians walk past the statue of Pope John Paul II outside the Gemelli hospital where Pope Francis is hospitalized for tests and treatment for an infection in Rome, on February 18, 2025. (AFP)
Pedestrians walk past the statue of Pope John Paul II outside the Gemelli hospital where Pope Francis is hospitalized for tests and treatment for an infection in Rome, on February 18, 2025. (AFP)

Pope Francis, who began his fifth day in hospital on Tuesday for what doctors have described as a "complex" respiratory infection, will not take part in this weekend's Holy Year events, the Vatican said on Tuesday.

The 88-year-old pontiff has been suffering from a respiratory infection for more than a week and was admitted to Rome's Gemelli hospital on Friday.

A planned public papal audience set for Saturday had been cancelled "due to the health condition of the Holy Father", the Vatican said in a brief statement.

A papal mass scheduled for Sunday will still take place, but will be led instead by a senior Vatican official, it added.

The Vatican said on Monday that doctors had changed the pope's drug therapy for the second time during his hospital stay to tackle a "complex clinical situation". They described it as a "polymicrobial infection of the respiratory tract".

Doctors say polymicrobial diseases can be caused by a mix of viruses, bacteria and fungi.

Francis, who has been pontiff since 2013, has had influenza and other health problems several times over the past two years. As a young adult he developed pleurisy and had part of one lung removed, and in recent times has been prone to lung infections.