Teheran (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Voter turn out to elect Iran’s tenth president is well above expectations, so much so that an official for the Ministry for Internal Affairs, cited by the official state agency IRNA, has spoken of possibly extending the closure of polling stations.
An electoral commission inspector, quoted by the same agency has described the affluence as “unprecedented, it is the first time people were queuing ahead of the opening”, of the polls. Fars writes that “Authorities appeared overwhelmed by the large number of people who began lining up even before polling stations opened, with many Iranians complaining of long waits of up to two hours for casting their ballots” and a survey has predicted that over 46.2 million have cast their ballot, in short almost the entire electorate. Regarding this the National Council of Resistance of Iran writes that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has ordered that the number of voters in the presidential election on Friday should be announced 35 million, more than 75% of the eligible voters, and that the regime in the ministries of interior and intelligence, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Bassij Paramilitary Force and other bodies have been ordered to forge ballots.
Khamenei, cast his vote in the early morning; according to IRNA he called on all Iranians to ensure the process is not tampered with and urged them to pay no heed to the rumours attributed him.
With this the Supreme Leader is referring to the fact that although he has declared that he does not want his preference known, some of his declarations in favour of the government have been read as his approval of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is seeking a second term in these elections.
At a political level the massive turn out, which appears to have overtaken the vote that brought Ahmadinejad to power four years ago, could indicate a return to the election process of the younger generations, who count for more than half the electorate. Even if no-one is daring to guess at the outcome, it resembles the turnout that swept the “reformist” Mohammed Khatami to power in 1997 when he beat the Supreme Leaders candidate Nateq-Nuri. At the time Khatami won over 70% of the vote and Khamenei could do nothing about it.
This time however, the real depositories of power the ayatollah appear divided on the elections. 50 of them supported the request put forward by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani – former president and current head of the authoritative Expediency Council – to Khamenei demanding “reparation” from Ahmadinajad’s charges against him on a television program, where he was not present to defend himself. And today, alongside calls for “stability” and the “preservation of the Islamic identity”, there are also calls for a large turn out. In that regard, the state television (IRIB) quoted among others the Grand Ayatollah Naser Makarem-Shirazi. Another ayatollah, Nuri Hamedani, described participation in the elections as a “religious duty”.
Significantly, on casting his ballot accompanied by his wife Zahra Rahnavard – a leader in women’s rights – the main reformist candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi, reported ISNA, asked officials to safeguard the vote of the Iranian people. The same source reported one of Ahmadinejad’s adversaries describing today's vote as “one of the most important elections in the history of Iran”. For his part Mousavi expressed his hopes for a sea change that would help Iranians know better days ahead.