Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed a group of Friday Prayer imams in a meeting in Tehran on Monday where he emphasized upon a high turnout in the upcoming Parliamentary and Assembly of Experts elections. He quoted a famous remark by Imam Khomeini (RA) who believed that election was crucial in an Islamic system where people were the major players in running the country and the main partners to the state; “Imam Khomeini (RA) accurately believed that people’s decision should have weight and effect on how the country is ruled; his view was going against the grain of some circles who interpreted his political tenets in a different way,” he told the meeting. “On the light of this, the public had remained with the system supporting it in many critical times, since they saw their voices found value and mattered for the state; protecting the electoral rights of the public would not merely include avoiding fraud in votes count, but the quality of people’s rights would also be at the focus,” Leader told the meeting.
“From a domestic view, elections bring a sense of national pride, independence, and identity; from a global and international view, it canvasses credit for the Islamic system and the country,” said the Leader, criticizing the circles claiming that the elections would not be reliable; “these circles and other similar circles have a malign disease of pessimism who would blow the clarion trumpets of ‘engineered election results’ whenever the election time approaches, effectively turning to bane the boon of elections with their devastating remarks,” he objected.
“We do not rule out isolated cases of mismanagement and fraud, however, there has been no systematic or orchestrated attempt to engineer results and wholesale fraud which would change the fate of many candidates in a constituency,” Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized.
He held that exercise of alertness by all government bodies responsible for holding elections has been the major cause of election health; “in some elections, diametrically disagreeing governments had had very accurate behavior in holding healthy elections, and it will be hopeful so for this round of elections; I would recommend the public to strictly trust parties who have embarked on election campaign out of their pure and unselfish motives of love of the Revolution; parties who seek special vested interests and partisan objectives and who seek occasionally corrupt ideals should be avoided by the public on the ballot,” emphasized the Leader.
Turning to the issue of infiltration, Ayatollah Khamenei emphasized that a major mission of the Friday Prayer imams should be acting as the ‘cultural and political tutelage’; he also believed that US infiltrations would be possible and probable in elections; “this should be taken to consideration by the public in their election behavior.”
On the maximum absorption of the young cohort, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution believed that Friday Prayer imams should work to ‘maximally attract the youth to the ritual of the Friday prayer;’ “this would not be possible through merely verbal communication; however, spiritual understanding and insight into these valuable teachings would also be contributing parts,” he told the meeting.
“Well-reasoned and strongly corroborated argument in cultural matters and ‘novel ideas’ would best help in this maximal attraction; after all, not all novel ideas would be depicted as innovation and hence deviation from the traditions; rather, they should be reached at through inquiry and reflection, and a process of rethinking and review,” he suggested.
Touching for the second time upon infiltration, the Leader of the Islamic Revolution said that the scope of plots and conspiracies had only been known for the intelligence authorities; “any infiltrating element would corrupt the system from within and a hollowed-out structure would easily break apart; in terms of exposing the infiltrators, the whistle-blowers should avoid defamation and making baseless allegations and should enlighten the public in due course,” he recommended.
Ayatollah Khamenei also mentioned the US which he believed had been seeking changes diagonally opposed to the ideal changes of the Revolution and which would attempt to derive people out of Revolutionary path into their path leading to their own favorite destinations.
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