Judiciary Chief: Certain Regional States Merely Dream of Holding Elections

Iran’s Judiciary Chief Sadeq Amoli Larijani underlined the massive participation of the Iranian people in the last week presidential election, and said certain countries in the region are afraid of holding elections and merely dream of it.
“In the election which was held in Iran last week, it was shown well how much our country relies on people’s votes and holds elections impartially and correctly,” Amoli Larijani said in an interview with Iran’s state-run TV in Tehran on Sunday.

“This is while, people in some neighboring countries dream of holding elections,” he added.

Millions of Iranians on June 14 went to the polling centers to vote in the country’s 11th presidential and 4th city and village councils elections.

Polling stations opened at 8 am (0330 GMT) last Friday and were scheduled to close at 6:00 pm (1330 GMT) before the Interior Ministry was made to extend the voting hours for several times due to the large voter turnout.

Polling was heavy since the very beginning. Reports from various media outlets said Friday morning that large numbers of people had queued behind closed doors before polling stations opened.

Thousands of additional ballot papers were sent to various Iranian cities after local electoral authorities from different constituencies across the country asked the Interior Ministry to send them more papers due to the unexpectedly large public turnout. A number of 50,483,192 people were eligible to vote in the elections. 1.6 million youths came to be eligible to vote for the first time in their lives as the voting age in Iran is above 18 according to the law.

The Interior Ministry’s election headquarters said turnout among the electorate was 72.7 percent.

Iran’s Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar announced last Saturday evening that from a total number of 36,704,156 ballots cast in Iran’s 11th presidential election on Friday June 14, Rouhani won 18,613,329 votes while his main rival Mohammad Qalibaf could secure only 6,077,292 votes.