TEHRAN – The head of the Leader of the Islamic Revolution’s office has praised the voter turnout rate in Iran’s recent presidential election, underlining that the people went to polling stations at the direction of the Leader despite propaganda campaigns by enemies not to do so. 

Mohammad Mohammadi Golpayegani said most people participated in the presidential election despite economic hardships and the enemies’ propaganda and this was because Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei had asked people to cast votes. 

The head of the Leader’s office made the remarks during a handover ceremony of the head of the Judiciary. Gholam Hossein Mohsen Ejei was inaugurated as the new head of the Judiciary, replacing Ayatollah Seyed Ebrahim Raisi, who, in turn, will be inaugurated as the new president of Iran in the coming weeks. 

“June has been a blessed month. June 18 has certainly been one of God’s days. In this enthusiastic election all Iranians, women and men as well as those able to cast vote, gave an affirmative response to the Leader’s divine call despite all the hardships and woes that they all admit,” Golpayegani said, adding, “All of us witnessed that on the election day, June 18, long lines formed up at the polling stations.”  

He said the enemies urged the people not to participate in the election and used everything in their media power to discourage people from casting their votes. “We were under a bombardment of audio-visual propaganda on social media. And there were miserable, wretched individuals, hired by the enemies, who told the people not to go to polling stations and not to cast their votes. [They instructed the people to say that] our vote is no. Some inside the country also said similar things. But none of them affected the people, and as the Leader of the Revolution said, everyone was amazed at the elections that what a nation that is so committed to its Leader and establishment,” Golpayegani pointed out. 

Iran’s presidential race was held on June 18 with four candidates on the ballot and led to the victory of Raisi. Initially seven candidates - Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh-Hashemi, Mohsen Mehr-Alizadeh, Alireza Zakani, Naser Hemmati, Saeed Jalili, and Mohsen Rezaei along with Raisi - ran for the post. Shortly before the start of the voting, Zakani and Ghazizadeh-Hashemi withdrew from the race in favor of Raisi while Mehr-Alizadeh announced his withdrawal in tacit support for Hemmati, who represented the reformist and moderate political groups. Following the victory of Raisi, his rivals rushed to congratulate him on his success without casting any doubt on the election’s integrity, a move that earned praise from the Leader of the Islamic Revolution in a recent public appearance.