Originally posted by the Voice of America.
Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America,
a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in
the public domain.


Iran's Top Leader Urges High Turnout in Presidential Vote

by Associated Press

   TEHRAN --

   Iran's supreme leader called on Wednesday for a high turnout in this
   week's presidential election, urging voters to head to the polls and
   send a message to the United States -- but stopped short of saying
   which candidate he prefers of the four remaining in the race.

   In a televised speech, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said the
   United States and its allies, including the "pathetic prime minister of
   the Zionist regime," or Israel, are closely watching the vote on
   Friday.

   He called the election a "great popular epic," saying that while the
   region is "drowned in anxiety," Iran is "peacefully and safely holding
   an election."

   "From the U.S. state apparatuses to European powers and regional
   countries aligned with America, to the pathetic prime minister of the
   Zionist regime, all are closely watching (the vote) and how and in what
   spirit" the Iranians will cast ballots, Khamenei said.

   Suspicious of US

   President Hassan Rouhani, a moderate, is seeking re-election in a vote
   that will largely serve as a referendum on his outreach to the West,
   which culminated in the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Under the
   accord, Iran agreed to limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for
   the lifting of some economic sanctions.

   Despite the deal, Khamenei -- Iran's top decision-maker -- remains
   deeply suspicious of the United States and its intentions toward Iran.
   Khamenei is believed to favor Rouhani's main challenger, the hard-line
   candidate Ebrahim Raisi, who has support from major clerical bodies,
   hard-liners in the establishment as well as allies of former hard-line
   President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

   70 percent turnout expected

   Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said turnout is expected to
   exceed 70 percent. Some 56.4 million people out of a population of 80
   million are eligible to vote.

   Fazli said vote counting would commence after midnight and that the
   results would be announced "sooner" than in previous elections. In past
   elections, results were announced two days later.

   Also Wednesday, Hassan Qashqavi, deputy foreign minister in charge of
   consular affairs and Iranian expatriates, said polling would also be
   held Friday for Iranian expatriates in 102 countries, including the
   U.S.
   The largest number of polling stations -- 55 -- would be in America,
   where more than 1 million Iranians live, he said. In the 2013 election,
   20 polling stations opened there for Iranian expats.

   Under house arrest

   According to reports on opposition website Kalemeh.com, Iranian
   opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mahdi Karroubi, who have
   been under house arrest since 2011 after they challenged Ahmadinejad's
   2009 re-election, each issued a statement supporting Rouhani.
   In his 2013 campaign, Rouhani vowed to lift their house arrests but
   that promise remains to be fulfilled. Rouhani won the presidential
   election that year with nearly 51 percent of the vote. Turnout for that
   vote was 73 percent.
   Last week, Iran's official IRNA news agency published the results of a
   survey in which nearly 64 percent of a 6,047 person sample group said
   they will be voting, while 20 percent said they were undecided.
   Historically, the more Iranians who cast ballots, the greater the
   chance a reformist or a moderate like Rouhani will be elected.

   Besides Rouhani and his rival Raisi, two other candidates -- Mostafa
   Hashemitaba, a pro-reform figure who previously ran for president in
   2001, and Mostafa Mirsalim, a former culture minister -- are in the
   race but are widely expected to drop out before polling starts.

   Critical of Revolutionary Guard

   At a rally in Raisi's hometown of Mashhad on Wednesday, Rouhani urged
   the country's powerful Revolutionary Guard and other armed forces to
   remain impartial in the election and keep their "distance from
   political games." He also demanded that the state broadcasting company
   remain neutral.

   Rouhani has increasingly criticized the Revolutionary Guard -- most
   recently on Monday, when he said the paramilitary force was abusing
   public funds to bus Raisi's supporters to his rallies.
   And during a presidential debate last week, he accused the
   paramilitaries of seeking to sabotage the nuclear deal, pointing to the
   Revolutionary Guard's launch of a ballistic missile bearing the words
   "Israel must be wiped out" in Hebrew in March 2016.

   Sanctions to be extended

   Later Wednesday, the Trump administration said it will extend sanctions
   relief for Iran granted under the nuclear deal but that it would also
   impose new and unrelated economic penalties over Iran's ballistic
   missile activity. The decision came just before the Obama
   administration's last six-month waiver was to expire.

   By pairing the waiver of old sanctions with an announcement of new
   ones, the administration is trying to show it's being tough on Iran
   even as it adheres to the nuclear deal for now. President Donald Trump
   has said he's reviewing the deal's future.

   The new sanctions target Iranian military officials and others accused
   of supplying Iran with materials for ballistic missiles.