While the rest of Iran focuses on an election defined by competing visions for the country, most people in the holy city of Qom declare only one allegiance: to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A traditionally conservative bastion at the centre of Iran's Shiite faith, the duty to vote in Qom is billed as another means to support the clerical regime's opposition to Western powers.

The city of over one million people has been historically synonymous as the home of Iran's clerics where students are taught Islamic history, jurisprudence and doctrine by grand ayatollahs in ancient schools.

It houses the mausoleum of Masoumeh, sister of Imam Reza, the eighth Imam to come after the Prophet Mohammad in Shiite Islam.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of worshippers visit. Qom, together with the Iraqi city of Najaf, compete for the world's most venerable Shiite sites.

Residents don't seem to rate the prospects of conservatives, political moderates or reformists, who are fighting for dominance in parliament in Tehran.

"I only support the supreme leader," Reza Ahmadi, a 65-year-old man wearing a keffiyah scarf, said of Khamenei, the Islamic republic's ultimate authority, as he returned from midday prayers.

On Friday, Iranians will pick 290 new MPs and 88 members of the country's Assembly of Experts, a powerful committee of clerics who monitor Khamenei's work. The assembly will also choose his successor if he dies during its looming eight-year term.
While the rest of Iran focuses on an election defined by competing visions for the country, most people in the holy city of Qom declare only one allegiance: to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A traditionally conservative bastion at the centre of Iran's Shiite faith, the duty to vote in Qom is billed as another means to support the clerical regime's opposition to Western powers.

The city of over one million people has been historically synonymous as the home of Iran's clerics where students are taught Islamic history, jurisprudence and doctrine by grand ayatollahs in ancient schools.

It houses the mausoleum of Masoumeh, sister of Imam Reza, the eighth Imam to come after the Prophet Mohammad in Shiite Islam.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of worshippers visit. Qom, together with the Iraqi city of Najaf, compete for the world's most venerable Shiite sites.

Residents don't seem to rate the prospects of conservatives, political moderates or reformists, who are fighting for dominance in parliament in Tehran.

"I only support the supreme leader," Reza Ahmadi, a 65-year-old man wearing a keffiyah scarf, said of Khamenei, the Islamic republic's ultimate authority, as he returned from midday prayers.

On Friday, Iranians will pick 290 new MPs and 88 members of the country's Assembly of Experts, a powerful committee of clerics who monitor Khamenei's work. The assembly will also choose his successor if he dies during its looming eight-year term.
Such claims remain strong, especially following the disputed 2009 elections where reformist opponents of the re-election of hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were labelled "seditionists".

Asghar Amanabadi, 29, from Arak province in central Iran was on a pilgrimage to Qom with his wife and baby. Standing next to the mausoleum he had to shout over the call of prayers.

"Ayatollah Khamenei is the number one figure in our country," Amanabadi said. "We all support him, but the principlists support him more."

On the last day of campaigning this week the supreme leader himself said that Iranians want lawmakers who won't be intimidated by the United States.

- 'Law is red line' -

Khamenei has said there will be no direct talks with Washington on any subject despite nuclear negotiations between Iran and world powers that resulted in a deal last July and the lifting of sanctions last month.

Since the nuclear agreement Khamenei has warned that Iran must guard against economic, social and cultural "infiltration" from the United States and other western countries.

Amanabadi agreed, saying infiltration was "not unlikely".

To him, Iranians should rely on their own rather than accepting "foreign technology" and "losing control" to the foreigners through it.

But 34-year-old cleric Enayatollah Bahmani, from southern Khuzestan province who has been doing religious studies in Qom, said he refused to fall for partisan political bickering.

"A true principlist is someone devoted to the revolutionary principles and ideals ... from any political party," he insisted.

Still, not everyone showed enthusiasm for the conservatives.

"I approve of the reformists more than others," said Zabihollah Sinapour, 26, a visiting student from Yasuj, in southwest Iran.

"I prefer to have the law as my red line and reformists have shown compliance to the law better than others."
Source: AFP