Former Iran president bows to will of supreme leader

IRAN’s controversial former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose two-term rule saw the country increasingly isolated internationally, has said he will not stand again following advice from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“In following the will of the great leader of the revolution, I have no plans to be present in next year’s presidential competitions,” he wrote in a letter to Khamenei made public by the media yesterday.

Ahmadinejad’s stand-down came a day after Khamenei, in cautiously worded remarks and without naming the former president, indicated that his standing again would be a mistake.

“A certain person came to me and I told him not to do a certain thing, believing it would be to the benefit of both the person himself and the country,” Khamenei said.

He implied that an Ahmadinejad candidacy would have a polarising effect that would “damage the country”.

Ahmadinejad, who was president between 2005 and 2013, said he had met Ayatollah Khamenei at the end of August. “I will forever remain the small soldier of the revolution and a servant of the people,” he concluded in his letter.

Ahmadinejad left office in August 2013 after two turbulent four-year terms, leaving the Islamic republic divided domestically, isolated internationally and struggling economically.

His inflammatory rhetoric — particularly over Iran’s nuclear programme and hostility towards Israel — was blamed for deepening tensions with the West and bringing down economic sanctions that Iran struggled for years to lift. But Ahmadinejad’s populist approach and humble roots mean he remains a popular figure among poorer sections of society.

Hassan Rouhani, who is expected to stand for a second term in the May 19 vote, oversaw a deal with world powers to end sanctions in exchange for curbing Tehran’s nuclear programme. He now faces mounting pressure from conservatives who say the accord has brought few benefits.

In 2009, Ahmadinejad’s re-election was followed by one of the largest protests in the country since the Islamic revolution three decades before.

Two candidates backed by reformists Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi — who have been under house arrest since February 2011 — contested the results.

Street demonstrations were repressed by a regime which dubbed the protest movement “sedition” and its leaders “heads of the sedition”. Both of Ahmadinejad’s terms were marked by anti-Western and anti-Israeli rhetoric, including questioning the Holocaust.

After becoming president in 2005, he quickly became international news after a speech in which he argued that Israel was doomed to be “wiped off the map” and that the Holocaust was a “myth”. He also accelerated Tehran’s atomic programme, triggering tensions with the West and fears of possible military action.

However, Ahmadinejad swept aside such criticism, calling the nuclear project an unstoppable train “without brakes and no reverse gear”.

During the last years of his presidency, the international community imposed tougher sanctions that paralysed Iran’s economy. Rouhani was elected on a promise to resolve the nuclear issue and normalise relations with the outside world.

The nuclear agreement was reached with the major powers in July last year after two years of intense negotiations.

But despite the agreement coming into force in January and some international sanctions being lifted, the economy’s recovery is still pending.