Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad registers his candidacy for the upcoming Iranian presidential elections in Tehran, June 2, 2024 - Reuters
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Former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad submitted his candidacy papers on Sunday to run in the early presidential elections scheduled for next June 28, after the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash.
The semi-official Iranian Tasnim Agency published footage on the Telegram application, showing Ahmadinejad submitting his candidacy papers.
Ahmadinejad is the most prominent candidate registered so far. Speaking after his recording, he pledged to seek “constructive engagement” with the world and improve economic relations with all countries, according to what was reported by the American ABC network .
“The economic, political, cultural and security problems go beyond the situation in 2013,” Ahmadinejad said, referring to the year in which he left the presidency after two terms.
Before his arrival at the Iranian Ministry of Interior, his supporters chanted and waved Iranian flags, and quickly surrounded the former president, who is 67 years old, chanting “God is great.”
Ahmadinejad, a university professor, became mayor of Tehran and then president of the Republic of Iran. He is the sixth president of the Iranian Republic.
Ahmadinejad assumed the duties of the presidency on August 3, 2005 after defeating his rival Hashemi Rafsanjani in the second round of the presidential elections. He was re-elected on June 12, 2009 at the expense of his rival Hossein Mousavi, and remained president until June 15, 2013 after the new elections were held.
“Checky path”
In 2005, Ahmadinejad announced his first candidacy for the presidency of Iran, and despite serving as mayor of the capital, Tehran, he was largely considered a political outsider, and opinion polls showed little support for him before the first round of elections.
In March 2012, he was summoned by the Shura Council, Iran’s legislative body, for inquiries about his policies and his power struggle with Khamenei. The unprecedented questioning of a sitting president by the council was widely interpreted as “a sign of the decline of Ahmadinejad’s political standing.”
The poor performance of his supporters in legislative elections later that month reinforced the perception that he had been “significantly weakened in the final months of his term,” which ended in August 2013. He was succeeded by the reformist Hassan Rouhani.
Although Ahmadinejad announced that he would retire from politics, he submitted his candidacy papers for the 2017 elections, even though Khamenei had previously advised him not to run, saying that it was “not in his interest and the interest of the country.”
Shortly after submitting his papers, Ahmadinejad was excluded from the elections by the Guardian Council. He was excluded again in 2021 after submitting papers to run in the presidential elections that year.
On June 11, the Guardian Council is scheduled to publish the list of candidates eligible to run in the competition after conducting a vetting of them.
Registration of candidates to run in the presidential elections began on Thursday, amid a heated race among conservatives to influence the choice of the country’s next president, after the sudden death of Raisi, who was considered a potential successor to Khamenei, the final decision-maker in Iran.
The registration period will last for 5 days, starting on May 30, and the applications of those wishing to run will be decided between June 4 and June 10, before the final list is announced on June 11.
Moderate politicians accused the 12-member Guardian Council of excluding rivals from hard-line conservatives who are expected to dominate the race.
AFP
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