President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday said he wanted to restore the vote in Iran to young people aged 15 and upwards less than a year after parliament raised the minimum voting age to 18.
“The government will soon present a bill to reduce the voting age from 18 to 15. It is a present to young people to mark the first day of the school year,” said Ahmadinejad, according to the IRNA agency. “When the voting age was 15, we saw how our young people acted with fervour and chose the right way for the independence and greatness of Iran,” he added, speaking on the day Iranian children traditionally return to school.
Parliament in January voted to raise the minimum voting age to 18, despite the opposition of Ahmadinejad’s government which argued that young people were “the pillar of the revolution.” |