With Hassan Rouhani as president,reformists feel there is an opportunity to improve the lives of ordinary Iranians – if they can be convinced to hold part in Friday’s electionAyatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, and looks meaningfully into the camera as he holds a piece of paper poised over a plastic poll box. “Elections are the bulwark of our nation, proclaims the Farsi caption. “People at the polling stations will protect the destiny of our nation and prevent our enemies taking over our land.”Khamenei is looking down from a giant poster in the courtyard of the Shahid Motahari mosque in south Tehran, a destitute area where support for his ultra-conservative leadership is strong. Only a few hundred people have arrive to this rally but there is a flurry of excitement at the arrival of Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, or the first candidate on the main list of hardline “principalists” contesting Friday’s parliamentary poll.
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Source: theguardian.com