Iran’s hard-line ex-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad registered on Sunday to run as a possible candidate for June 28 presidential election after Ebrahim Raisi’s demise last month, reported CNN.
Ahmadinejad intends to regain the Iran’s top political position after a helicopter incident killed the previous President and his accompanying team.
The populist former leader was first elected as Iran’s president in 2005 and stepped down because of term limits in 2013.
During these years, he openly challenged the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. As a result, his attempt to run in 2021 election was obstructed by Iranian authorities.
Now Ahmadinejad’s registration poses a threat to the Supreme old cleric as it comes at a hard time full of intensified tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran’s rapid advancement of nuclear program and its arming of Russia during its war with Ukraine.
Furthermore, Iran’s support for Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacking ships in the Red Sea over Israel-Gaza War has caused more tensions.
Ahmadinejad has recently arrived at the Interior Ministry and started the registration process. Before his arrival, his supporters gathered and raised Iranian flags. They surrounded the Former President, shouting: “God is the greatest!”, reported Associated Press.
The registration process will close on Tuesday, and the elections will begin on June 28.
Ebrahim Raisi, 63, and Amir-Abdollahian, 60, were traveling in a convoy of three helicopters from Iran’s border with Azerbaijan in the country’s mountainous northwest to the city of Tabriz after inaugurating Qiz Qalasi Dam. The helicopter went down in heavy fog in a remote area and all of them passed away.
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