Iran’s hardline former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has registered to run for president in the country’s June 28 election, organized after the death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month, Iran’s state television reported on Sunday. However he could be barred from the race: the country’s cleric-led Guardian Council will vet candidates, and publish the list of qualified ones on June 11.
He was barred from standing in the 2017 election by the Guardian Council, a year after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned him that entering was “not in his interest and that of the country.” A rift developed between the two after Ahmadinejad explicitly advocated checks on Khamenei’s ultimate authority. In 2018, in rare criticism directed at Khamenei, Ahmadinejad wrote to him calling for “free” elections.