Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is on Twitter!

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was president of the Islamic Republic when authorities first banned Twitter back in 2009. But on March 5, he announced he had opened a Twitter account, posting a 11-second video to mark the occasion. Standing next to an Iranian flag, the former president urged people to follow him. “In the name of God,” he says in Persian to open the video. Then he speaks in English, ending with “Peace, love and the best wishes.”

Just a few minutes before posting the video, Ahmadinejad posted two tweets, the first of which was in English. “In the name of God,” it said, accompanied by the #Iamontwitter hashtag. The second one, in Persian this time, saluted “Freedom, justice, love, humanity, everyone and you.” This may have caused some confusion, considering the fact that Twitter was blocked in Iran following the 2009 disputed presidential election — and many people tweeted back to the account, reminding Ahmadinejad of this. The video, however, convinced people that the account was authentic. Ahmadinejad is definitely now on Twitter. His Twitter bio reads, in English: “Husband, Dad, Grandfather, University Professor, President, Mayor, Proud Iranian.”

Many people have suggested that Ahmadinejad’s foray onto the social networking platform is linked to the forthcoming presidential election, and the fact that one of his close allies, Hamid Baghaei, is running. And he’s not the only one. Members of the principlist group The Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces (PFIRF), founded in late 2016, recently started an anti-Rouhani campaign on Twitter. The spokesperson for the group is Marzieh Vahid Dastjerdi who was Minister of Health under Ahmadinejad before he dismissed her for criticizing him. She regularly shares the group’s tweets about the elections and its criticisms of Rouhani using the hashtag “#انقلاب96” (Revolution 2017). Remarking on the increasingly popularity of Twitter among Iranian politicians and officials — despite the fact that Twitter is still officially banned — one Tehran-based sociologist says the platform “gives them a chance to learn about people’s complaints so they can direct their propaganda toward their grievances.” He asked not to be named, and to be cited only as "M. Yousefi."

In recent months in certain parts of Iran it has become possible to connect to Twitter without using a filter breaker. But plenty of Iranian officials have had active Twitter accounts for a long time, and Twitter is fast becoming the most political social network in Iran. Cabinet ministers, President Rouhani and his vice presidents and many members of parliament are all on Twitter. Even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has an account. As the sociologist says, “Nothing is more important for a politician than being heard” — and of course, with social networks, the potential to reach audiences around tthe country, and around the world, is enhanced.

Khamenei Joins the “Sedition”

But following the disputed 2009 presidential election, Khamenei was firmly anti-Twitter, accusing it of being in cahoots with the Green Movement, or the “sedition” as he and his allies refer to the political uprising of 2009. In 2010, Khamenei said that in the summer of 2009, one (unnamed) site was allied with what he described as “the opponents,” supporting their work by “sending news from here, by getting the orders from there and by creating havoc.” When the company running the site realized it had to stop the service in order to carry out essential repairs, the US government stopped it from doing so in order to make sure it continued to support anti-Iranian opposition groups. “They did not allow the temporary shutdown of this social network,” Khamenei said [link in Persian].

Rouhani’s ministers and vice presidents were among Iran’s first Twitter pioneers. As nuclear negotiations got underway in late 2013, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and his chief negotiator Abbas Araghchi both posted on Twitter regularly. Zarif’s Twitter account has close to 600,000 followers. During talks with the P5+1 countries (the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, France plus Germany), he often tweeted news before the press had reported it. It didn’t take long for a large number of journalists to follow Zarif.

Masoumeh Ebtekar, one of Rouhani’s vice presidents and the head of Iran’s Environmental Protection Agency, is another politician who uses her Twitter account to set out her department’s policies and actions. Many have gone on Twitter to question her about air pollution in Khuzestan, the pollution of Lake Urmia and other environmental issues, and she has often provided answers. Shahindokht Molaverdi, Rouhani’s vice president for Women and Family Affairs, is also on Twitter, has a following of nearly 40,000 and regularly answers questions from the public. When, in late December 2016, a barrage of tweets in support of political prisoner Arash Sadeghi emerged, reporting on his declining health due to a continued hunger strike, people appealed Molaverdi to step in. “I have done whatever is within my power and will continue to do so,” the vice president replied.

But it’s not just President Rouhani and his allies and supporters that have joined Twitter. Along with the supreme leader, hardliners have also joined. Saeed Jalili, who was the chief nuclear negotiator under Ahmadinejad, former Speaker of Parliament Haddad Adel and the Secretary of the Expediency Council Mohsen Rezaee all have accounts. When members of parliament discovered they could communicate with their constituents through tweets, they joined too. And in recent months there has been a noticeable increase in the number of clerics and hardliners close to security agencies who have gone on Twitter, though many of them stop short of encouraging dialogue on Twitter, as controversial ayatollah Mohammad Reza Nekoonam did. He is currently in prison for his overt support of expression online.

“Must Have Twitter”

On January 4, a media network under the tutelage of the Revolutionary Guards called the Soft War Officers published a blog post entitled “Must Have Twitter.” The group called on its members, public relations departments of all government ministries, municipalities and other government agencies to join Twitter, suggesting that they set up accounts in three languages [link in Persian]. The article admitted that filtering Twitter had not stopped people from using it, and that negative policies toward the platform had been ineffective. Instead, the author suggested that Twitter could provide the Islamic Republic with ample opportunities to further its agenda.

So is seems the new approach is: “if you can’t beat them, join them (and beat them later).” Of course, the hypocrisy is undeniable, since so many of those who have recently joined Twitter are the very same people who put policies in place to filter and block social networks in the first place.

Ezzatolah Zarghami, who joined Twitter on August 6, 2016, was a member of the Supreme Council on Cyberspace, one of the agencies that imposes filtering on websites. He, like Ahmadinejad, feigns naivety, pretending he is unaware that it was during Ahmadinejad’s presidency that so many social networking sites were blocked. Maybe, like Ahmadinejad, he’s confused. In one of the former president’s latest tweets — in English  — he remembers the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez: “Chavez is alive until humanity is alive, freedom and truth is alive,” goes the tweet. “He will return as freedom and justice will return.” It’s a curious turn of phrase. Could Ahmadinejad be confusing Chavez with the Shia messiah, the 12th Imam, who is expected to come back and restore justice and peace? As with all (relatively) new inventions, it can take a little while to get the hang of how they work.