Iran: Ayatollah Discourages Talk of Vote’s Fairness
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Version 0 of 1. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, said its enemies would most likely try to sabotage the presidential election scheduled for June. He warned citizens and prospective candidates to avoid discussion about the fairness of the vote, suggesting that such talk was subversive and would discourage turnout. “Where on earth have elections been so free as in Iran?” he said in a speech in the holy city of Qom, reported by the state-run press. “Watch out for your words not to dissuade people.” His statement, coming five months before the vote for a successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, appeared to reflect the ayatollah’s concern about repeating the chaotic aftermath of the 2009 election, in which Mr. Ahmadinejad, his favored candidate, won by a suspiciously lopsided margin that opponents said was fraudulent. Postelection protests escalated into the most serious challenge that the Islamic government had faced since it took power in the 1979 revolution. Mr. Ahmadinejad’s two challengers have remained under house arrest for the past few years. |