Tehran Friday Prayer Leader Threatens Presidential Election Debate Participants

Mohammadi Kermani, a member of the Expediency Discernment Council and preacher of Friday prayers in Tehran, while warning candidates who adopted a “disrespectful approach” in the election debate process, said “Fear that you will be disqualified by the Guardian Council.”

He also threatened them that in this case they would “suffer disgrace and humiliation in this world and divine punishment in the hereafter.”

In the first debate of the 1400 presidential election candidates, a verbal confrontation erupted between Abdolnasser Hemmati and Mohsen Mehralizadeh on one side and Ebrahim Raisi, Mohsen Rezaei, and Alireza Zakani on the other.

Mohammadali Mohammadi Kermani on Monday also called the behavior of those who, according to him, “lied, slandered, and insulted” in the election debate the “greatest betrayal” and demanded their apology.

He did not specify exactly which faction and which candidates were meant by “lies, slander, and insult,” but said in the debates “some gentlemen were expressing the society’s problems and saying what condition society is in and how much the society is troubled by inflation and other issues and the fact that the value of money has decreased. They were expressing the problems concisely and also mentioning the root causes of the problems, saying that these issues are the fault of which people.”

He emphasized that these individuals believed that if they received votes and became president, those people who caused suffering, dissatisfaction, misery, and hardship for the people should be tried and banned from leaving the country so they would not escape the country. This was one scene in this debate.”

In this debate, Mohsen Rezaei, the principlist candidate, threatened Abdolnasser Hemmati, the former governor of the Central Bank and his election rival, along with some officials from Hassan Rouhani’s government whom he did not name, with prosecution. He said some government officials should be banned from leaving the country and prosecuted.

In the June 7 election debates, the attacks of principlist candidates were primarily focused on economic issues.

Source: Radio Farda