Mohammad Khatami: I did not vote consciously and honestly

Former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami emphasized that he did not knowingly and honestly participate in the elections and did not vote.

A few days after the 12th election of the Islamic Consultative Assembly and the Supreme Leader's Council of Experts, in addition to the fact that the majority of Iranians did not participate in the election, former President of the Islamic Republic Mohammad Khatami emphasized to his advisors that he had not voted.

Mohammad Khatami said after a meeting about the elections: "I did not participate in the elections of the Islamic Republic consciously and honestly and did not vote. I have decided to be with and in harmony with the masses of discontented people. Low-cost and beneficial reform is the overwhelming desire of the people. My non-voting was in the hope of restoring the people's damaged trust in the Islamic Republic and political movements, including reformism."

In the 2017 presidential election, Mohammad Khatami called on people to participate in the election in a campaign known as "repetition." However, this method was not effective based on the results of the subsequent elections, while in the previous elections, Khatami's messages had led to the victory of the reformists.

Now that a year has passed since nationwide protests and numerous slogans from the people aimed at overthrowing the Islamic Republic regime, Mohammad Khatami claims that overthrowing the regime will cause great harm to the government and the people, and considers the solution to be national reconciliation to block the path to overthrowing.

His claim that the people want reform comes at a time when in the previous presidential election, reformist candidate Abdolnaser Hemmati came in fourth place after Ebrahim Raisi and Mohsen Rezaei, and according to official reports, he received only 2.4 million votes.

Ali Khamenei had also stated in previous years that 40 percent of people's participation in elections in some countries was a disgrace, while state media announced 41 percent of people's participation in the elections minutes after the voting deadline on March 11 ended.

The state media claims that more than 40 percent of the people participated in the elections, while some observers considered the participation rate in this election cycle to be much lower than the announced number. “People’s participation in the March 1 elections was less than 10 percent,” said Mohammad Hassan Ghadiri Abyaneh, a conservative diplomat, during a live broadcast of a post-election roundtable.