Ayatollah Khamenei Urges Iranians to Vote in Presidential Elections Second Round
Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei met at the Shahid Mutahari University, July 3, 2024. Photo: X/ @TehranTimes79
July 3, 2024 Hour: 12:39 pm
The ongoing democratic process seeks to elect the successor to President Raisi, who died in a helicopter accident.
On Wednesday, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called on Iranian citizens to turn out massively for the second round of the presidential elections.
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“Those who love Islam, the Islamic Republic, and the country’s progress should demonstrate it by participating in the elections,” said Iran’s highest political and religious authority.
“The second round of the presidential elections is very important,” assured Khamenei, who acknowledged that the participation in the first round “was lower than expected,” something he attributed to the fact that “voters have problems, work, and difficulties.”
Khamenei said that the 60 percent of voters who did not turn out for the first round are not necessarily people who are against the Islamic Republic. “It is completely wrong to assume that those who did not vote in the first round are against the system,” he pointed out.
The first round, which took place at the end of June, recorded the lowest voter turnout since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. Only 40 percent of voters went to the polls despite Khamenei’s repeated calls to vote.
In recent years, this citizen behavior has established a trend. While 73 percent of citizens participated in the 2017 presidential elections, only 48 percent did so in the 2021 presidential elections. Then, in the parliamentary elections in March, voter turnout reached 41 percent.
The ongoing democratic process seeks to elect the successor to President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter accident in May, along with seven other people.
Autor: teleSUR/ JF
Fuente: EFE
