Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will run for the presidency in the upcoming June 28 elections, state media announced on Sunday. He was filmed registering his candidacy at the Interior Ministry in Tehran, pledging to bolster Iran’s economy in a video shown on state television.
Ahmadinejad’s candidacy follows the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash on May 19. The crash, which occurred in northwestern Iran as officials returned from the Azerbaijan border, also claimed the lives of Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and several other officials.
“My most important motivation is to focus on solving economic problems,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech aired by state TV.
Ahmadinejad, regarded as a hardliner, was sanctioned by the US last year over the detention of American citizens, held for years in Tehran’s Evin prison. His previous tenure as president was marked by human rights abuses, economic policies that weakened the Iranian rial and stunted economic growth, and alleged involvement in the assassination of an exiled Kurdish politician. He also accelerated Tehran’s nuclear program and hinted at building a nuclear weapon.
His re-election in 2009, viewed by opponents as rigged, prompted the Green Movement protests, which at the time were the largest in Iran’s history. Hundreds of people were arrested by security forces during these protests.
Former parliament speaker Ali Larijani, regarded as a moderate aligned with the former reformist president Hassan Rouhani, is also running. The final list of candidates will be decided by the Guardian Council, which is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
