TEHRAN: Iran’s hardline former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday registered his candidacy for a presidential election this month, state media reported. The Islamic republic goes to the polls on June 28 to replace ultraconservative president Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash on May 19.

Ahmadinejad, 67, held the post for two straight terms from 2005 to 2013, a period marked by a standoff with the West especially over Iran’s nuclear program and his incendiary remarks on the Zionist entity. Like all presidential hopefuls, his bid is pending the approval of the Guardian Council, a conservative-dominated body of 12 jurists that vets all candidates for public office.

Ahmadinejad was previously disqualified from entering the presidential race in the 2021 and 2017 elections. “I am confident that all the country’s problems can be solved by making maximum use of national capacities,” he said after submitting his bid at the interior ministry on Sunday. In 2005, Ahmadinejad gained worldwide notoriety when he said Iran’s archfoe the Zionist entity was doomed to be “wiped off the map” and also asserted that the Holocaust was a “myth”.

Nationwide protests broke out against Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009 and the state’s response led to dozens of deaths and thousands of arrests. Candidate registration opened on Thursday and closes on Monday. Other prominent figures including moderate ex-parliament speaker Ali Larijani and ultraconservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili have also registered their bids. The Guardian Council will announce the final list of candidates on June 11 after it has completed its vetting procedures. — AFP