Enemies Trying to Lower Public Turnout in Upcoming Elections in Iran

Tehran’s provisional Friday Prayers Leader Kazzem Sediqi cautioned that enemies of the country are striving hard to decrease people’s turnout in the upcoming parliamentary polls through various means and plots.

“Enemies are attempting to exhaust the people and make them feel disappointed through sanctions and working on weak points” in a bid to lower the turnout in the parliamentary elections, Kazzem Sediqi said, addressing a large congregation of worshippers on Tehran University Campus here on Friday.

The ninth parliamentary elections are scheduled for March, 2, 2012.

The cleric further warned that another plot exercised by the enemies to decrease people’s participation in the March elections is stirring discord among different social strata and widening gaps among groups and political factions.

He further noted the sedition plot staged by the enemies in the 2009 presidential election, and cautioned that enemies have once again started practicing the same scheme.

Sediqi cautioned the Iranian officials and people to show maximum level of vigilance during the polls, and said enemies are waiting to see the lowest level of ignorance or unawareness to misuse the occasion and strike a blow at the Islamic Republic through lowering the public participation in the elections.

After the official announcement of the presidential election results on June 13, 2009, supporters of Ahmadinejad’s main rival Mir Hossein Moussavi – who rejected the results – took to the streets of Tehran and other cities in daily rallies.

But later, millions of Iranian people staged a strong presence and ended weeklong demonstrations and unrests in the capital.

During unrests after June 12 presidential election, Iran announced identification and arrest of a gang of rioters who wore police or Basij uniforms to stir unrests and conduct operations of sabotage following the announcement of June 12 presidential election results.

Later reports informed of the smuggling of different kinds of weapons and munitions into Iran by the opposition groups and foreign countries.

Tehran declared that a number of rioters were members of the anti-revolutionary groups, including the monarchists and the Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), who had received trainings for staging operations of sabotage during unrests.

Some of the rioters arrested during Iran’s post-election unrests confessed to their links with the anti-Iran terrorist group Mojahedin-e Khalq Organization (MKO), and said that they had received trainings in MKO’s Camp Ashraf in Iraq.

Later, Iran revealed that a number of western states have played a major role in stoking the unrests after the presidential elections, singling out Britain and the US for meddling. Tehran also revealed strong evidence substantiating the interfering role of several foreign embassies and diplomats in stirring riots in Iran.

A few weeks later, Tehran expelled two British diplomats and arrested a number of local staffs of the British embassy in Tehran after documents and evidence substantiated London’s interfering role in stirring post-election riots in Iran.

In one of the court hearing sessions, British embassy’s local staff in Tehran Hossein Rassam, who was charged with spying, admitted cultivating networks of contacts in the opposition movement using a £300,000 budget.

Rassam also confessed that the local staff of the embassy had attended protests against the June’s presidential election results along with two British diplomats, named in court as Tom Burn and Paul Blemey, and that he had attended meetings with the defeated opposition leader, Mir Hossein Moussavi, alongside Burn.

Iran’s Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi had warned in September that those who staged a sedition plot after the 2009 presidential election in collaboration with a number of western states have once again hatched plots to undermine the country’s security during the upcoming parliamentary elections, but added that Iranian intelligence forces are fully prepared to foil such plots.

Addressing an Expert Assembly session here in Tehran in September, Moslehi said that masterminds and perpetrators of the post-election unrests in Iran in 2009 are seeking to find themselves new allies through both overt and covert actions in an attempt to start another move to strike a blow at the principles of the Islamic Revolution and the Islamic establishment.

“The intelligence ministry enjoys a high level of vigilance and will not allow these movements to derail the Esfand 12 (March 2, 2012) parliamentary election from its normal path,” Moslehi noted.

A senior Iranian lawmaker also announced in December that Tehran holds strong intelligence showing that a number of western countries are trying to disturb security during the upcoming parliamentary elections in Iran.

“According to the reports that we received months ago, a number of western countries have drawn plans for the elections in a bid to challenge the 9th parliamentary elections just like (June) 2009 (presidential) election,” member of the parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Zohreh Elahian told FNA.

Yet, Elahian assured that the enemies’ plots will remain futile thanks to the vigilance of the Iranian nation.

In September, an Iranian political analyst warned that EU’s diplomatic corps and embassies in Tehran have prepared a series of plots to stir tension and spark unrests during the upcoming parliamentary elections in Iran.

“Today, a chain of all European embassies in Iran have devoted the main pivot of their activities to Iran’s 9th parliamentary elections in a bid to create a challenge for our security,” Hossein Shariatmadari, who is also the editor-in-chief of Iran’s government-daily Keyhan, stated at the time.

He further cautioned that the aforementioned chain of embassies is drawing a roadmap for its seditious moves during the March elections through tight collaboration with the same Iranian politicians who stirred unrests after the 2009 presidential election in Iran.