A Jewish woman casts her ballot at a polling station during Iran's parliamentary elections in Tehran, Iran, March 2, 2012. The Iranian parliamentary elections began on Friday morning with some 48 million eligible voters to choose members of the 290-seat parliament. (Xinhua/Ahmad Halabisaz)

Iranians on Friday headed for polling stations to vote for members of the 290-seat parliament, as their supreme leader Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei cast his own ballot shortly after the voting started, calling on Iranian citizens to play an active role in the elections.

"The bigger the turnout is, the better for the security and future of the country," said Khamenei.

He stressed the importance of the parliamentary elections, saying that participation of Iranians in the polling will have " messages both for the enemies of Iran and for its friends."

The enemies of the country who "have been defeated and have been delivered a blow" are making remarks against the elections and repeating the same issues like sanctions, human rights and threats, he said.

However, Iran is in a privileged position and can do better both in words and in practice, he added.

Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad-Najjar announced in December 2011 that 5,395 candidates, including 4,967 men and 428 women, had registered for the race. With some 3,400 approved for the elections, over one-third of the candidates have been disqualified by the electoral supervisory bodies.

According to the local media, some 48 million eligible voters could choose their legislators for a four-year term.

Over the past months, Iranian authorities incessantly called for a mass turnout in the elections as a way to show their support to the nation amid Western isolation and threat.

Highlighting the significance of a high voter turnout, Khamenei said Wednesday that the Iranian nation would display its firm determination to triumph over enemies of the country.

"Well, we vote for those who are representatives of us and who will voice our concerns at the legislative body, the parliament." Pedram Hayati, a voter, told Xinhua in the Hosseinieh Ershad polling station in northern Tehran.

A young girl, who introduced herself as Faezeh Rasaei, said "I vote for those who deserve it, those who want the welfare of the country and those who are preservers of the sovereignty of Iran."

Another boy, Saeed Gholami, said "the main concern (of those whom we vote for) should be to solve the problems facing people, and they should not be after luxurious lives."

The expectations for the candidates came as the country's economy feels strangled by the rising pressures from Western countries.

Iran's parliamentary elections began Friday with the focus on the competitions among conservative rivals, while the reformists had earlier claimed to be out of the contest.

During Friday's elections, the main competition was between supporters of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and conservative principalists who enjoy the support of influential clerics in the Islamic republic.

In the past years, Ahmadinejad and his aids have been faced with mounting pressures, most of which were exerted by the hardline conservatives-dominated parliament.

Iran's semi-official Mehr news agency reported Wednesday that Ahmadinejad was asked to appear before the parliament during the following week to answer questions by lawmakers about a number of the administration's irregularities.

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

Iranian interior minister on Wednesday rejected claims that the Iranian president was discouraging participating in the elections, saying that "this is not true... and the president is encouraging people to participate in the elections."

Although the Iranian officials said that some individual reformist candidates also registered for the elections, major reformist leaders, for the first time since the Islamic revolution in 1979, said that they would not announce any candidate lists for the elections.

Iran's former president Mohammad Khatami, who, according to the local media, cast his vote in suburban Tehran on Friday, said in December that reformists would not announce candidates for the parliamentary elections because "conditions for reformists to participate in the election were not met."

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

Iran's Guardian Council said earlier that individuals who were linked to the protests after 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 amid claims that the vote had been rigged in favor of the incumbent president Ahmadinejad. More than 1,000 protesters and dozens of reformist activists were reportedly arrested, most of whom the authorities said were later released.

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

Iran held its previous parliamentary elections in March 2008, when the authorities approved about 4,500 candidates to compete for the 290-seat legislature and barred over 1,700 others, who were regarded as not "loyal" enough to Islamic values and the Islamic revolution.

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