Pre-election silence kicks off in Iran one day before presidential race

(MENAFN - Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) TEHRAN, June 17 (KUNA) - The pre-election silence started in Iran, one day before the kick-off of the presidential election, which will be held tomorrow Friday.During the pre-election silence, the Iranian law prohibits candidates from carrying out any campaigns, whether through the media or taking part in any event.In a press conference, Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said that the candidates'' campaigns will be stopped from seven in the morning on Thursday until the day of the poll.A survey showed that more than 60 percent of the Iranians will vote for the candidate Ibrahim Raisi, while the rest of the percentages are distributed by a large difference between the rest of the candidates.Candidate Ibrahim Raisi, got about 15 million votes in his first participation in the previous presidential elections, in which he competed with the current president, Hassan Rouhani.As for expectations regarding the percentage of the participation in the elections, the head of the Elections Committee of the Iranian Ministry of Interior, Jamal Araf, announced in a press conference that some surveys expected the turnout to be 37 percent, and others predict 47 percent.Observers believe that the chances of the possibility of low popular turnout are due to several reasons, the most important of which is the economic factor and the citizens'' dissatisfaction with the performance of the current government, which they voted in favor of heavily in 2016.Yesterday, the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, urged in a direct speech broadcast on Iranian state television the citizens to participate "actively and enthusiastically" in the elections.More than 59 million Iranian voters are registered in this round of presidential elections, half of them are women. (end) mw.aa MENAFN17062021000071011013ID1102298501