"Official Praises High Election Turnout as Iranians' Crushing Response to Enemies" (Fars News-Iran)

Gotta love that headline:

Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi praised the Iranian people's massive participation in the March 2 parliamentary elections, and described it as a crushing response to the enemies' negative propaganda against the Islamic Republic.

"Three decades after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, US officials still think they can achieve their objectives through political pressure and economic sanctions," Abbas Araqchi said on Saturday.

However, these officials received an appropriate response following a high turnout of the Iranian people in various scenes to defend the Islamic establishment, he added.

They are aware of the Iranian people's strong support for the Islamic establishment but Israeli and Western media launched propaganda to exert an international pressure on Iranians, he stated.

"West media propaganda and efforts by Western officials to put the Iranian nation under pressure failed through the massive participation of people in the Majlis elections and their highest participation record," the official said.

Araqchi, who is deputy foreign minister for Asia-Pacific and the Commonwealth nations' affairs, emphasized that Israeli and Western media were defeated in a psychological warfare against Iran by the vigorous turnout of Iranians.

Iranians from different walks of life came to the polling stations in large numbers on March 2 to determine the fate of the country's legislative body for the next four years. Iranians staged a high turnout in the country's 9th parliamentary elections in a move deemed as a straight message to the US war rhetoric.

Over 48 million Iranian voters were eligible to cast their ballots, and initial estimates showed that at least 65% of them have been present at the polling stations. [...]

According to a Memri article:

The number of eligible voters was close to 48 million. Following calls from opposition circles to boycott the elections, the regime stated in advance that it anticipated a turnout of 65%, and immediately after the elections, it announced that the turnout had indeed been 64.2% . . . In an interview with the Kaleme website, Ardeshir Amir Arjomand, the spokesman of the Green Movement Coordination Council and an advisor to Mousavi, thanked the public for boycotting the elections, and said that the reported turnout rate of 64% had been pre-determined by the regime. He added that this figure was just as reliable as the claim of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad that over 50% of Syria's citizens had participated in the recent referendum even while he was massacring them.