Heydar Moslehi, Iran’s Minister of Intelligence, has warned against the abuse of government budgets for illegitimate purposes in the presidential and city council elections.
ILNA reports that Moslehi said on Saturday March 2: “As we have two important elections in the coming [Iranian] year…I have to stress that we need to stop any form of abuse of government budgets in the election processes.”
The presidential election in Iran will take place in June 2013, at the same time as city council elections.
Conservative and reformist factions have both expressed concern about potential interference in the elections process by the Ahmadinejad administration.
After two consecutive terms as president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not eligible to run in the 2013 elections, but there is speculation that he might be grooming his allies to take his place.
