Former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad registered this Sunday (06/02/2024) his candidacy for the June 28 presidential elections, state media reported.
Iran goes to the polls to replace the ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter accident on May 19.
Ahmadinejad, 67, held office for two consecutive terms, from 2005 to 2013, a period marked by confrontation with the West, especially over Iran’s nuclear program and his inflammatory comments about Israel.
Like all presidential candidates, his candidacy is pending approval by the Guardian Council, a body dominated by conservatives and made up of 12 jurists, who examine all candidates for public office.
In the 2021 and 2017 presidential elections, the conservative Ahmadinejad was disqualified.
“I trust that all the country’s problems can be solved by making the maximum use of national capabilities,” he said this Sunday after presenting his candidacy at the Ministry of the Interior.
Also aspiring to the presidency are the former moderate speaker of Parliament, Ali Larijani, and the ultra-conservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, among others. The Guardian Council will announce the final list of candidates on June 11.
Ahmadinejad became known in 2005 when he said that Israel was doomed to be “wiped off the map” and for claiming that the Holocaust is a “myth.”
rr (afp/ap)
