The turnout in Iran's parliamentary elections on Friday is “glorious” and higher than in previous legislative polls, the top election official said. “So far it has been a glorious and the people have responded to the supreme leader's (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) call” to vote, Deputy Interior Minister Ali Reza Afshar told state television. “Observers who have monitored several past elections admit that so far we have an election with a more glorious participation and a healthier process. “If this trend continues, we will have the maximum turnout,” added Afshar, a former top Revolutionary Guards official who is in charge of organizing the elections. He did not give any figures. Required to write down the names of every one of their 30 chosen candidates, voters in Tehran could be forgiven for taking some time fulfilling what their leaders have called a patriotic duty. The capital will send 30 MPs to the next parliament, and its voters have to write, by hand, both the names and the numbers of each of their hopefuls. The well-prepared had drawn up lists of their preferred candidates the night before so they could copy the names quickly at the polling stations. Others used SMS text messages sent by the main political factions. “I prepared my list over a week ago,” said Solmaz, 23, after voting in central Tehran. “I do not know them personally but I know their objectives.” Voters are free to “pick-and-mix” from the four main conservative and reformist lists, meaning that many were voting for both sides. The process takes a good 15 minutes but voters appeared unperturbed by the effort. The challenge of voting is less complicated outside of Tehran. For example, Iran's holy second city of Mashhad sends only five MPs to parliament while the clerical epicenter of Qom has three seats. “I voted for people from different lists. What matters to me is competence and engagement. In the current situation we cannot just choose anyone and we need competent people,” said Gholam Ali Tabesh Rou, 45, who voted in central Tehran. Iran's leaders are urging a massive turnout to send a message to the West of national unity at a time of mounting tensions over Tehran's nuclear program. “My advice is to do this great deed in good time and first thing in the morning and do not put it off until later,” said supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei who as usual was among the very first voters. “For our country and our nation this is a critical moment and day. The election is a time that determines the fate of a nation.” State television broadcast traditional songs and epic music to accompany pictures of long queues of people voting, including the theme from the film “1492: Conquest of Paradise” and Wagner's “Ride of the Walkyries”. Mobile polling stations were set up in buses parked outside some parks to encourage people indulging in traditional Friday picnics to vote, and officials were also prepared to visit private homes to take votes from the sick. “There is a smile of satisfaction on the lips of the martyrs (killed in the 1980-1988 war with Iraq) when they see the long lines of people voting,” declared a news anchor as he introduced the lunchtime bulletin. “Another ‘Yes' to the Islamic republic,” said a slogan on state television. At a polling station in conservative working class south Tehran close to the railway station, voting was brisk. “We should vote so as to show our government that our nation is independent and we will not let anyone invade us,” said 70-year-old merchant Gholam Hossein Asghari. Housewife Khadideh Dehghani, 68, a chador-clad fervent supporter of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said: “We vote to send a message so that Islam's enemies get annihilated.” “Poor Ahmadinejad tries so hard and we want his friends to get elected in parliament so they can help him. He is like a flower and his friends are like flowers.” But further north in central Tehran, car dealer Seyyed Mohsen, 51, boasted he had never voted. “Why should I vote when I am buying rice for 30,000 riyals (around 3 dollars) a kilo? They have already been elected. They are joking,” he said. __
