TEHRAN – The Iranian police chief vowed on Wednesday that the February parliamentary elections will be held with the highest level of security due to his forces’ intelligence supremacy. 

Addressing a gathering of elections monitoring delegations in Mashhad, Brigadier General Hossein Ashtari said, “Majlis’ importance has always been well-regarded and emphasized many occasions by the country’s Leader as well as the late Imam Khomeini, so no one should say a word that might end in insecurity (of the election). 

He added, “No one is allowed to interfere in efforts to providing security to the election.” 

Noting that police is responsible for security of the elections, the police chief said, “We are at the scene with more intelligence supremacy. Our red line is security.” 

He went on to say that the security roadmap for election has been prepared and predictions made for possible trouble-making points. 

“Based on the security map, the polling stations with possible security threats have been already recognized to enable the police to predict necessary measures,” the brigadier general added.

The police chief said, “We are fully aware of the developments in neighboring countries. If the enemies created Daesh terrorist group in Syria or Iraq, it was aimed at destabilizing Iran, and now, it seems that the foes’ main target of creating recent riots in some regional counties is Iran; of course they will not be successful.”

The last edition of the race for the 290 seats of the parliament was held in late February 2016 when 4,844 candidates, including about 500 women, competed for a seat in the “house of nation”, a label for the parliament used by Imam Khomeini.

In 2016, some 1,000 candidates competed for 30 parliamentary seats in the capital Tehran. Five seats also went to the religious minorities recognized in the Iranian Constitution, namely Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians.

There were 52,000 polling stations with 120,000 ballot boxes across the country.

MPs in Iran serve a four-year term.

Among the main tasks of the legislative body are introducing legislation, dismissing the president and cabinet ministers through no-confidence votes, approving annual national budget and ratifying international treaties.

 MJ/PA