The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is sure that the approaching election to replace President Mah-moud Ahmadinejad, whose second term ends in June, will be free and fair. So sure, in fact, that he has forbidden discussion of it. This was the import of a speech he gave last month in the holy city of Qom. In the way of such speeches, it had the opposite effect to the one he wanted. There had been grumbles before Mr Khamenei's intervention, mostly recalling the country's last presidential poll, in 2009, which returned Mr Ahmadinejad in dubious circumstances at the expense of his reformist rivals. The supreme leader's words were uttered on the same day that one of his clerical representatives, Ali Saeedi, bluntly called on the Revolutionary Guard to "engineer" the elections. The result, even in an increasingly authoritarian Iran, was uproar.
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机译：最高领导人阿亚图拉·阿里·哈梅内伊（Ayatollah Ali Khamenei）确信，即将上任以取代第二任期将于6月结束的总统穆罕默德·内贾德的选举将是自由和公正的。可以肯定的是，事实上，他禁止对此进行讨论。这是他上个月在圣城库姆发表演讲的重要意义。用这种讲话的方式，与他想要的相反。在哈梅内伊先生干预之前，人们一直抱怨不已，主要是回想起该国在2009年进行的上次总统选举。该选举以令人信服的情况让艾哈迈迪内贾德（Ahmadinejad）退回，以牺牲他的改革派竞争对手为代价。最高领导人的话语是在同一天，他的一位文书代表阿里·塞迪（Ali Saeedi）直截了当地呼吁革命卫队“策划”选举。甚至在日益独裁的伊朗，结果也令人震惊。
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