Iran’s former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took an implicit swipe at Ayatollah Khamenei, saying he feels sorry for the “person” who called the recent presidential election an “enormous victory.”
In a video released by SolsMedia on Twitter, Ahmadinejad says, “One feels sorry, firstly for the country, secondly for oneself, and then for the person who says this election was an enormous victory.”
Earlier in the week, Ali Khamenei described the recent elections as “epic,” saying that efforts on social media to diminish “the enormity of this election” were futile.
SolsMedia, which is affiliated with Ahmadinejad, also released a video of Supreme Leader Khamenei from 2001 in which he says, “It is disgraceful for a nation to have 35 percent or 40 percent of eligible voters turn out [to vote]. This shows that [those] people do not trust, do not care for, and have no hope in their political system.”
The 2021 presidential election saw the lowest voter turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic, with only 48.8 percent of eligible voters participating.
Ahmadinejad, who was disqualified from running in the 2021 presidential race, has been vocal about his criticism of the supreme leader and his family.