The one who has the slightest opposition to the revolution is not useful to you
Three days before Iranians were set to vote in a snap presidential election, their 85-year-old Supreme Leader stood before a holiday crowd and asked something of his people that they had grown reluctant to give: their participation. Ayatollah Khamenei's call for maximum turnout was both a civic appeal and a political signal, aimed at a population worn down by sanctions, grief, and disillusionment, and directed against the one reformist candidate who dared to imagine a different relationship with the world. In nations where legitimacy is measured in crowds, an empty ballot box is its own kind of verdict.
- Record-low parliamentary turnout earlier in 2024 had already exposed a crisis of faith between Iran's government and its people, and the Supreme Leader was now racing to prevent a repeat humiliation.
- The sudden death of hardline President Raisi in a May helicopter crash forced this election prematurely, stripping the establishment of its preferred timeline and adding urgency to Khamenei's intervention.
- Without naming him, Khamenei effectively placed a target on reformist candidate Masoud Pezeshkian, whose platform of nuclear deal revival and Western engagement the Supreme Leader framed as a betrayal of the revolution.
- Chants of 'Death to America' erupted from the crowd as Khamenei spoke, a reminder that the audience he was rallying carried its own fierce momentum, one he had to pause and quiet several times.
- Friday's vote would land as a referendum not just on candidates, but on whether Iranians — exhausted by sanctions, the Mahsa Amini protests, and years of broken promises — still believed the system was worth engaging at all.
On Tuesday, Ayatollah Khamenei addressed a crowd gathered for the Shiite holiday of Eid al-Ghadir with a message wrapped in the language of national duty but sharpened by political intent: he wanted Iranians to vote, and he wanted them to vote correctly. He did not name his target. He did not need to.
Masoud Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon and the race's sole reformist, had built his campaign around reviving the 2015 nuclear agreement and fundamentally reorienting Iran toward the West. Khamenei's warning — that anyone with 'the slightest opposition to the revolution' would not be a good colleague for the Iranian people — was aimed squarely at that vision. The crowd responded with chants of 'Death to America, death to Israel,' and Khamenei had to call for quiet more than once.
The intervention came against a backdrop of mounting anxiety. Parliamentary elections earlier in the year had produced record-low turnout, a visible sign that ordinary Iranians — battered by sanctions, a collapsed currency, and soaring prices — had begun to disengage from a system they no longer trusted to serve them. The 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, and the protests that followed, had deepened that exhaustion.
The election itself had been forced early by tragedy: President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline Khamenei ally, died in May when his helicopter crashed. Now the Supreme Leader was attempting to restore legitimacy through turnout, knowing that a sparse vote would be read — at home and abroad — as a population that had quietly given up. His plea was damage control and doctrine at once: a reminder of what the Islamic Republic was, and a warning against anyone who might try to make it something else.
On Tuesday, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei stood before a crowd gathered for the Shiite holiday of Eid al-Ghadir and made an unmistakable plea: he wanted Iranians to vote in massive numbers when they went to the polls three days later. The message, wrapped in the language of national duty, carried a sharper edge beneath it—a warning against those he saw as threats to the revolution itself.
Khamenei, 85 years old, did not name names. He did not have to. His target was clear enough: Masoud Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon and the only reformist in the race, whose campaign centered on a return to the 2015 nuclear agreement and a fundamental shift in Iran's relationship with the West. "The one who has the slightest opposition to the revolution, or the Islamic system, is not useful to you," Khamenei told the crowd. "He will not be a good colleague for you." The words landed hard. Cries of "Death to America, death to Israel" erupted from the audience, and Khamenei had to ask for quiet several times as he spoke.
The Supreme Leader's intervention reflected a deeper anxiety gripping Iran's political establishment. The country had just held parliamentary elections earlier in the year, and the results were sobering: voter turnout had hit a record low. Iranians were staying home. The reasons were not mysterious. The economy, strangled by Western sanctions, had become a source of daily hardship. The currency had collapsed. Prices for basic goods had soared. And the memory of recent upheaval—the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, the protests that followed, the women who refused to wear the mandatory headscarf—had left many Iranians exhausted and cynical about their government's willingness to change.
This Friday's presidential election was being held in the shadow of another rupture. In May, a helicopter carrying President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline figure and one of Khamenei's closest allies, had crashed and killed everyone aboard. The accident had forced the election forward, and now the Supreme Leader was trying to salvage what he could of the legitimacy that came from a robust turnout. A low vote would be read, both domestically and internationally, as a sign of weakness—a population that had simply given up on the system.
Khamenei's plea was thus an act of damage control, but it was also something more: a direct statement about what kind of leadership he would tolerate. Pezeshkian's vision of engagement with the West, of returning to nuclear negotiations, of opening Iran to the world—this was precisely what Khamenei was warning against. The Supreme Leader saw in such positions a capitulation to enemies, a betrayal of the principles on which the Islamic Republic had been built. Whether his words would move Iranians to the ballot box remained to be seen. The apathy was real, and it ran deep.
Citas Notables
The one who has the slightest opposition to the revolution or the Islamic system is not useful to you. He will not be a good colleague for you.— Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei
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Why did Khamenei feel the need to speak out now, before the election?
He was watching the same numbers everyone else was—the parliamentary turnout had collapsed. A low vote in a presidential election would be even worse, a public statement that Iranians had lost faith in the system. He needed to reverse that.
But his comments seemed to target one specific candidate. Why not just call for turnout in general?
Because Pezeshkian represents something Khamenei sees as existential—the idea that Iran should negotiate with the West, rejoin the nuclear deal, open itself up. That's not just a policy difference to him. It's a threat to the revolution itself.
The crowd was chanting "Death to America." Does that reflect genuine feeling, or is it performative?
Probably both. There's real anti-American sentiment in Iran, especially among older generations and the religious establishment. But in a moment like that, with the Supreme Leader present, the chants also serve a function—they're a way of signaling loyalty, of being on the right side.
What about the people who are apathetic? What are they thinking?
They're exhausted. The economy is broken. They've protested, they've been ignored or worse. For many, voting feels like it won't change anything anyway. Khamenei's speech doesn't address that. It just tells them they have a duty.
So he's trying to shame them into voting?
In a way, yes. But shame only works if people still believe the system is worth participating in. That's the real problem he's facing.