The Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, on Wednesday called on Iranian nation for mass turnout in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Highlighting the significance of a large voter turnout in the parliamentary elections, the Iranian leader said that the Iranian nation will display their firm determination to enemies of the country, the local satellite Press TV reported on Wednesday.

Khamenei said the upcoming parliamentary elections would be another blow to the country's enemies, said the report.

In Friday's elections, Iran will serve another blow to the hegemonic powers, which would be even harder than that delivered on Feb. 11 during rallies marking the anniversary of the Islamic revolution, Khamenei said in an address to a crowd of visiting people in Tehran.

On Feb. 11, hundreds of thousands of Iranians celebrated the anniversary of the Islamic revolution by chanting slogans against the United States and Israel.

Iranian voters will demonstrate their determination and will power to enemies so that hegemonic powers would realize that they are doomed to failure in their efforts against the Iranian nation, Khamenei was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

Khamenei said that Friday's vote will be much more important than previous elections as enemies have invested all their remaining energy in the parliamentary elections.

In January, Khamenei asked the Iranian people to actively participate in the parliamentary elections slated for March 2, 2012, and said that the enemies of the country are trying to discourage people from taking part in the elections.

According to Press TV, over 48 million Iranian voters are eligible to cast their ballots and more than 3,400 candidates are competing for the 290 seats in the Iranian Majlis (parliament).

Iran held its last parliamentary election in March, 2008, when the authorities approved about 4,500 candidates to compete for the 290-seat legislature and barred over 1,700 people from running because they were not "loyal" enough to Islam values and the Islamic revolution.

Iran's conservatives who generally support the country's Islamic establishments and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won an absolute majority of seats during the 2008 election, while reformists who wanted better relations with the West won far fewer seats.

Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar said Wednesday that Western sanction pressures on the Islamic republic over its nuclear program will cause higher turnout in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Talking to reporters two days ahead of the country's parliamentary elections, the Iranian minster said that in face of the sanction pressures people will defend the Islamic establishment and their country by massive turnout in the elections which is slated for March 2.

The minister's remarks come as the country's economy feels strangled by the rising pressures from Western countries and the people seem to think more of the financial situation of their family than political events in the country.

Further, the opposition political figures of the country and the reformists have said that they do not have candidates for the elections and this raises doubts whether there would be a mass turnout in the Friday's elections.

Iran's former president Mohammad Khatami said in last December that reformists would not announce candidates for the upcoming parliamentary election because "conditions for reformists to participate in the election were not met."

Khatami said earlier that reformists could only participate in the elections if all reformist political prisoners were freed, the political atmosphere was opened up and elections could be held with utmost transparency.

Iran's Guardian Council said earlier that individuals who were linked to the protests following the 2009 presidential election would not be eligible to run for the campaigns.

Protests gripped Tehran and other Iranian cities after the 2009 presidential election in Iran, amid claims that the vote had been rigged in favour of the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

More than 1,000 protestors and dozens of reformist activists were reportedly arrested in the wake of the disputed election, most of whom the authorities said were later released.

The two reformist candidates for the presidential election, Mir- Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, are currently under house arrest.

Asked whether the imprisoned Iranian opposition leaders can participate in the voting, Mohammad-Najjar said Wednesday that all the Iranians who want to participate in the elections can vote in the parliamentary elections.

He said that among the candidates qualified for the Friday elections, there are diversity of political trends and plural views and it will help people to have more choices to choose from.

When asked about some rumours that the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is discouraging people about participating in the elections, he said that "This is not true ... and the president is encouraging people to participate in the elections."

On Wednesday, the semi-official Mehr news agency reported that Ahmadinejad will appear before the parliament during the next week to answer questions by lawmakers about a number of the administration's irregularities.

This is for several times that, during the past months, the conservative rivals of the president have signed the motion to question him but later they have withdrawn their calls due to some "considerations."

The local observers believe that the move to summon the president to the parliament just on the eve of the elections is an indication of power struggle among the conservative camp in the Islamic republic and is also aimed at practicing pressures on the president and his supporters.