Khamenei urges huge poll turnout

Supreme leader calls for voters to bolster regime against foes

TEHRAN // Iran’s top two presidential candidates launched a final day of election campaigning yesterday as the supreme leader called for a big turnout to bolster the regime against its “enemies”.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested Iran’s foes would be deterred from pursuing regime change if they saw voters flock to the ballot boxes in tomorrow’s poll.

“American, European officials and those of the Zionist regime are watching our elections to see the level of participation,” he said.

“The Iranian nation has enemies. Faced with the enemy, the people should show its determination and calm.”

Turnout is all-important to the Iranian regime, which uses elections to demonstrate the legitimacy of its Islamic system.

But on the campaign trail, two starkly different visions of how that system will evolve have been on display.

President Hassan Rouhani, 68, a moderate cleric, defended his international outreach including a nuclear deal with world powers that ended many sanctions in exchange for curbs to Iran’s atomic programme. Mr Rouhani told his hardline opponents they were not equipped to continue his diplomatic efforts.

“You say you want to negotiate with the world but you don’t know how to speak the global language. You don’t even know how to speak the language of your own people,” he said at a rally in the northern town of Ardabil.

His hardline opponent, Ebrahim Raisi, has vowed to stick by the nuclear deal, but said the government had made too many concessions to the West and failed to “cash the cheque” offered by the accord.

“A diplomacy of supplication will not solve our problems. We need a diplomacy of strength,” the 56-year-old told supporters in Tehran.

Mr Raisi said Iran’s continued exclusion from international banking, despite the nuclear deal, was proof that Mr Rouhani’s diplomacy had failed.

“In what measure have the sanctions been lifted? The banking sanctions that were the most important are still in place.”

Conservative Mostafa Mirsalim and reformist Mostafa Hashemitaba are still in the race, although they are not expected to win more than a few per cent of the vote.

‘ Faced with the enemy, people should show its determination Ayatollah Ali Khamenei Iran’s supreme leader