President Hassan Rouhani on Wednesday urged Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militia under its control not to meddle in Friday’s presidential election, in a rare warning that underscored rising political tensions.

The Guards, who oversee an economic empire worth billions of dollars, are seldom criticized in public, but the pragmatist Rouhani is locked in an unexpectedly tight race against hardline cleric Ebrahim Raisi, who is believed to have their support.

“We just have one request: for the Basij and the Revolutionary Guards to stay in their own place for their own work,” Rouhani said in a campaign speech in the city of Mashad, according to the Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA).

Rouhani reinforced his appeal by quoting the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, who he said had warned the armed forces against interfering in politics.

Suspicions that the Guards and Basij falsified election results in favor of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad led to nationwide protests in 2009. Dozens of people were killed and hundreds were arrested, according to human rights groups, in the largest unrest in the history of the Islamic Republic.