Pres. Rouhani: Iranian nation to disappoint enemies today more than before

AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): Iran's President appreciated the hard work of all people working for holding the parliamentary and mid-term Council of Experts elections, saying, "The people of Iran will disappoint the enemies today more than before by their massive turnout”.

Speaking on Friday morning after casting his ballot at the parliamentary and mid-term Council of Experts elections, President Hassan Rouhani said, "Today, the 11th parliament will be formed by the hands of our powerful people; a parliament that everyone expects to be more active in resolving their problems”.

Stating that in this round of elections 98 per cent of the ballot boxes are linked together online, he described the move valuable and instructed the Minister of Interior to attempt to hold the 2021 elections completely by electronic means.

Parts of President Hassan Rouhani’s speech are as follows:

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful

We are very happy that today, a glorious day will be recorded in the history of our country and our revolution. Fortunately, there is a direct online link between the election office at the Ministry of Interior and all ballot boxes in polling stations across the country.

Some parts are 100 percent online, some 99 percent, and some 98 percent. Overall, 98% of online boxes are online, and this is a positive point. How many people have voted, how many people are voting, how many voters in Tehran's polling stations, how many districts around Tehran and all the provinces have voted, can be seen here. This is a very good and valuable job done, a well-done electronic identification system.

We hope that the Minister of Interior will double his efforts, that all the electoral process will be completed in 2021 and that our people will have access to complete digital voting.

Here I would like to recall 40 years ago, in March 1980, the first parliament elections –of course it was then called National Consultative Assembly, then became the Islamic Consultative Assembly- when the first election was held for the first assembly, of course there was a lot of elections in March of that year. Despite all hardships and problems we had, despite war and all problems that we have had in these 40 years, all elections have been held in due time and this is one of the great honours of our country; a country that has experienced different conditions and experienced war.

Our great Imam [Khomeini] paid a lot of attention to timely elections without a delay for even one day, and you can see that there has been no gap between these 10 previous elections and the 11th Parliament, which is going to start next year. That is, yesterday the previous parliament is in office and the next day, the new parliament begins and this is not very common in the history of democracy, and in our country, it was not like this before the revolution.

We are happy that the 11th Majlis is being formed by our powerful people with their very valuable votes, which means that our people are now forming the 11th Majlis with their tastes and votes. God willing, the best of the candidates find their way to the 11th Majlis and what people want is a more active parliament that will resolve people’s problems and make their lives better by enacting laws that are urgent, conducts their job of monitoring, and is bound by the constitutional in monitoring and enforcing the legislations.

God willing, we will see a very good parliament in the 11th Majlis. All of our parliaments have had ups and downs, but there have been very good parliaments since the first one, which I believe was the best one we have had to date, and we hope that both God and the people will be satisfied with our 11th Majlis.

I would like to appreciate all the staffs, all those who are managing the ballot boxes today, those who oversee, those who are going to work tonight and tomorrow, those who are providing security for the boxes all over the country, the media who have worked hard these days and invited people to the ballot box. They did a great job. I also thank the noble and dear Iranian nation who have been successful to vote so far, and wish success for those who have are going to go to the polls in the afternoon and by the end of the legal time.

God willing, our nation will create a new source of pride and our enemies will be disappointed more than ever. Inshallah.

Wassalamu alaikum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh

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