Iran's Ahmadinejad disqualified from presidential election

Iran's Ahmadinejad disqualified from presidential election

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian state TV said Thursday that the body charged with vetting candidates has disqualified former hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from running in next month's presidential election. It carried an Interior Ministry statement saying that President Hassan Rouhani has been approved to run for re-election, along with hard-line cleric Ebrahim Raisi, who is considered close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ahmadinejad, who remains a deeply polarizing figure even among Iranian hard-liners, had shocked the country by registering last week. Khamenei had previously urged him not to run. Ahmadinejad was president from 2005 to 2013, and was best known abroad for his incendiary rhetoric toward Israel, his questioning of the scale of the Holocaust and his efforts to ramp up Iran's nuclear program.