Tehran's Friday prayer leader threatens presidential debaters

Movahedi Kermani, a member of the Expediency Discernment Council and Friday prayer leader in Tehran, warned candidates who adopted an "insulting approach" during the election debate process, saying, "Be afraid that you will be disqualified by the Guardian Council."

He also threatened them that if they did so, they would be "suffered with disgrace and humiliation in this world and divine punishment in the Hereafter."

In the first debate of the presidential candidates of the 2022 election, a verbal argument broke out between Abdolnaser Hemmati and Mohsen Mehralizadeh on one side and Ebrahim Raisi, Mohsen Rezaei, and Alireza Zakani on the other.

On Monday, Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani also called the behavior of those who, he said, "lied, slandered, and insulted" during the election debate "the greatest betrayal" and demanded an apology from them.

He did not specify exactly which faction or candidate he meant by "lies, slander, and insults," but said that in the debates, "some gentlemen expressed the pain of society and said what the situation was like and how much society was upset about the high prices and other issues and the fact that the value of the currency had fallen. They expressed the pain in a concise manner and also said the root of the pain, whose fault these problems were."

He emphasized that these people believed that if they were to win the vote and become president, those who caused suffering, discomfort, misery, and hardship to the people should be tried and banned from leaving the country so that they would not flee the country. This was also a scene in this debate.

In the debate, the conservative candidate Mohsen Rezaei threatened to prosecute his opponent, former Central Bank Governor Abdolnaser Hemmati, along with some unnamed officials of Hassan Rouhani's government. He said that some government officials should be banned from leaving and put on trial.

In the June 16 election campaign, the main focus of the fundamentalist candidates' attacks was on economic issues.

Source: Radio Farda