A former adviser to Iran's ex-President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says the controversial politician wishes to do for Iran what Boris Yeltsin did for the Soviet Union.
The adviser said Ahmadinejad believes that the collapse of the regime is imminent and that he wants to play a part during the transition period similar to what Yeltsin did in Russia. So, it is important for him to preserve his position in the system, that is currently limited to his membership in the Expediency Council.
Abdolreza Davari who was loyal to Ahmadinejad during his presidency (2005-2013), but later turned against him to appease the current hardliner government, also opined that President Ebrahim Raisi’s government is in fact the continuation of Ahmadinejad's administration.
He claimed that if Ahadinejad was to form a cabinet for a third term, he would have more or less chosen the same ministers. "The difference is that this third government is far less efficient than the first two," he said.
Davari pointed out in his interview with Khabar Online website in Tehran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and Raisi is that the former had a lot of managerial track record, but the latter lacks any executive experience.
In fact, most of the hardliner Paydari front dominating the parliament and many of Raisi’s ministers were Ahmadinejad supporters and officials who broke away from him, at least publicly, after he fell out of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s favor.
Ahmadinejad turned into an effective critic of the ruling elite, when he levelled all sorts of accusations against Iranian officials including Khamenei after 2017. The charges Ahmadinejad made against Khamenei, former President Hassan Rouhani and former Judiciary Chief Sadeq Amoli Larijani and former Majles Speaker Ali Larijani included accusations of financial corruption, and political inefficiency.
Nonetheless, Davari observed that Ahmadinejad has been conspicuously silent during recent months. He said this is because the former President does not wish to lose his position at the Expediency Council by making comments that might annoy Khamenei. His job at the EC gives him a margin of security that protects him against his political rivals. Davari also said that another reason for Ahmadinejad's silence is that the team that administered his social media accounts has separated from him and he no longer has access to those accounts.
Davari further claimed that Ahamadinejad cannot gather more than 200 to 300 people in Tehran while his predecessor former President Mohammad Khatami can have up to 10 thousand of his supporters gathered in the Iranian capital. This claim runs counter to facts, however, as thousands of people showed up at some of Ahamdinejad’s rallies in provinces prior to June 2021 elections.
Meanwhile, he wrote letters to US Presidents Obama and Trump, as well as renowned artists including Angela Joly and voiced his ideas about almost everything in tweets in English addressing well-known celebrities.
Ahmadinejad also went to international exhibitions abroad including in the United Arab Emirates and Turkey, where he seized the opportunity to give interviews to the press and expressed his ideas about "managing the world," a topic that was his favorite during the eight years of his presidency.
Ahmadinejad was the first Iranian President who went to New York to take part in the UN General Assembly every year. When in New York, he made all sorts of controversial remarks about hot topics including the Holocaust, homosexuality, Iran's problematic ties with the United States and its enmity with Israel.