US sanctions five Iranian officials for obstructing ‘free and fair’ election
The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of
Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned on Thursday five Iranian members of
the Guardian Council, which oversees the parliamentary elections in the
country, accusing them of abusing their power of vetting candidates’
eligibility to run and depriving the Iranian nation of a “free and fair”
elections.
“The Trump Administration will not tolerate the
manipulation of elections to favor the regime’s malign agenda, and this action
exposes those senior regime officials responsible for preventing the Iranian
people from freely choosing their leaders,” said Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin on Thursday.
The Treasury sanctioned Ahmad Jannati, Abbas Ali
Kadkhodaei, Siamak Rahpeyk, Mohammad Hasan Sadeghi Moghadam and Mohammad Yazdi.
The Guardian Council, which reports directly to
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, allowed approximately 7,150 candidates
to run out of more than 14,000, according to state TV. Nearly a third of
sitting parliamentarians were banned from running again.
Iranians go to the ballot boxes to cast their votes
on Friday.
