Live Blog | Parliamentary Elections

Press Roundup provides a selected summary of news from the Farsi and Arabic press and excerpts where the source is in English. Tehran Bureau has not verified these stories and does not vouch for their accuracy. Any views expressed are the authors' own. Please refer to the Media Guide to help put the stories in perspective. You can follow breaking news stories on our Twitter feed.

3:45 p.m., 11 Esfand/March 1 The following items from Iranian media sources were selected and translated by Tehran Bureau columnist Muhammad Sahimi:

The Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has ordered newspapers and magazines to carry headlines that project "excitement for the elections." They have been threatened with fines and publication bans If they fail to do so. Reformists say their polls suggest voter turnout will be around 10 percent, while the ruling hardline factions have predicted that 60 percent of voters will participate.

Followers of the reactionary cleric Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi -- or Mesbah as he is referred to in Iran -- claim that he has launched an Armaan Garaa (Idealists) group, represented in the Majles election by the JPEE, Jebheh Paaydaari Enghelaab-e Eslami (Durable Front for the Islamic Revolution).

According to Hossein Allah Karam, the hardline head of the Coordination Council of the Hezbollah Forces, the JPEE represents the Idealists, while Jebheh Mottahed Ossolgaraayaan (JMO), or the United Front of the Principlists, will represent the Principlists. He claimed that, from now on, the Idealists and Principlists will represent the two main political trends in Iran, and that the main competition in the Majles elections is between the two groups.

Hossein Talaa, another supporter of the JPEE and former governor-general of Tehran, claimed that the "JPEE is the revolutionary idealism that the Imam [Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] wanted." Talaa, who fought in the Iran-Iraq War and was a senior political official in the Saar-allah garrison in Tehran, said the "sedition" -- the Green Movement -- began in July 1999 when there was an uprising by University of Tehran students that shook the foundation of the Islamic Republic, and that the 2009 movement was merely its continuation.

11:25 p.m., 10 Esfand/February 29 In this video, as translated by Ali Alfoneh of AEI, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei urges Iranians to turn up to vote:

On Friday's election day, thanks to divine benevolence, the Iranian nation will give a slap harder than the previous ones in the face of [Global] Arrogance [i.e., the United States] and will show its decisiveness to the enemy so that the front of Arrogance understands that it can't do anything when confronting this nation.... All over the world, an enthusiastic election is the symbol of the nation being alive and [a symbol of] their will. Therefore, in any country in which there is vast popular participation in the election, it is a sign of their vigilance and their harmony with the regime.

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