Raisi: Active Participation in Elections Creates a Strong Iran

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi urged Iranian citizens on Friday to make a "correct and informed" choice to create a "strong parliament" amid fears of record reluctance to participate in the upcoming legislative elections.
Iranian elections are held simultaneously with the selection of members of the Assembly of Experts, responsible for determining the Supreme Leader's tasks and place of residence.
A few days ago, Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei made a new appeal to increase the participation rate in the vote scheduled for next March.
Raisi spoke through a video conference on Friday during the opening of 200 nationwide radio and television election campaign channels.
The Mehr government agency quoted Raisi as saying, "All capacities must be used to make a correct and informed choice to create a strong parliament."
Raisi stressed that the participation of all people is effective for the elections, calling for using all capabilities as a "duty."
The new television channels are supposed to cover electoral districts throughout the country and allocate hours of broadcast for the candidates, according to the head of the Radio and Television Corporation in Iran (IRIB), Peyman Jabali.
However, there is a widespread exclusion of candidates, including former President Hassan Rouhani.
Last month, without giving reasons, the Guardian Council did not approve Rouhani's candidacy for a new term in the Leadership Council of Experts.
According to Agence France-Presse, the complex process of selecting the final candidates has come a long way after the Guardian Council rejected a third of the 24,982 nominees.
The multiple calls for "active participation" in the elections reflect concern over reluctance to participate in the first electoral vote since the massive wave of protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in August 2022.
The Iranian authorities often cited the expansion of the support base for the regime with widespread participation in the elections, but the last poll in 2021 witnessed a record decline in the number of voters.
Iranian officials fear a repeat of the scenario of the last elections held in 2020, which witnessed limited competition between conservatives and hard-line conservatives after the exclusion of reformists and moderates.
Raisi confirmed earlier that his government does not have "any candidate" for the parliamentary elections but is "only trying to encourage increased participation."
Weeks before the voting date, the tone of "warning against the enemy" escalated to dominate political and religious discourse in Iran.
Tehran's Friday prayers preacher Ali Akbari said last month that the enemy is taking measures to ensure the failure of elections in Iran, urging strong participation in the vote.
Tasnim Agency, affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), quoted Akbari as saying that the enemies want to prevent the people from participating in the elections by waging "psychological warfare" and despairing them.
They also want to distort security and cast doubt on the validity of the elections, said Akbari.

The head of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards on Friday described the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a former defense minister as the “end and political death” of Israel, in a speech.
“This means the end and political death of the Zionist regime, a regime that today lives in absolute political isolation in the world and its officials can no longer travel to other countries,” Revolutionary Guards chief General Hossein Salami said in the speech aired on state TV.
In the first official reaction by Iran, Salami called the ICC warrant “a welcome move” and a “great victory for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements,” both supported by the Islamic republic, AFP reported.
The court also issued a warrant for the arrest of Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif.
The warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant were issued in response to accusations of crimes against humanity and war crimes during Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, sparked by the Palestinian militant group’s attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The ICC’s move theoretically limits the movement of Netanyahu, as any of the court’s 124 national members would be obliged to arrest him on their territory.
The court’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan urged the body’s members to act on the warrants, and for non-members to work together in “upholding international law.”

Raisi: Active Participation in Elections Creates a Strong Iran