Once he wanted to "wipe Israel off the map" and was adamant that the United Kingdom was "a tiny island west of Africa," and that "there are no homosexuals in Iran." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also insisted that tens of thousands who protested to his sloppy way of running the country and his government's rigging of the 2009 presidential election were "dirt and dust." 

Now, he says he has changed. "How can one not change in 10 or 15 years?" he said during a recent interview with the Young Journalists Club (YJC), a news agency affiliated with the Iranian state television.  Ahmadinejad's website re-ran the interview after the YJC "archived" it. "Why do some people expect me to be the same as I was ten years ago? No one should remain the same even after a couple of days," he maintained.

Now he tweets in English and congratulates birthdays and national days and New Years of other nations the same way a head of state would do. In several interviews during the past months, he tried to present himself as a man who understands the new generation, likes pop musicians, and talks about Michael Jackson and Angelina Jolie.

"We have a limited lifetime, and we need to move toward perfection during this short time," said the former ultraconservative president, adding that "One should become more understanding. We need to learn more and analyze everything in a better way."

On March 29, which coincided with the birthday of the Shiites' “hidden” 12th Imam, hundreds of Ahmadinejad's supporters defied security regulations and pandemic policing rules and showed up at his doorstep in Narmak, a lower-middle class neighborhood in the eastern part of the Iranian capital Tehran to ask him to run for president again in Iran's June election.

Ahmadinejad said on that occasion and in the interview with the YJC that he wished to have more time and could serve the people round the clock. "I wish there was a medicine that would eliminate man's need for sleep so that one could work 24 hours a day," he said. But still he did not say whether he would or would not run in the election.

The reason could be his uncertainty about whether the hardline pro-Khamenei Guardian Council will endorse his qualifications as a presidential candidate. The Council disqualified him in 2017.

On the social networking platform Telegram where Iranian officials believe more than 40 million Iranian accounts are active, Ahmadinejad's supporters are present in every debate about the next election. Many say they will not vote if he is not a candidate. However, it is difficult to assess the extent of the former President’s support is genuine and how much of it is the work of programmed bots or Internet robots that act as real users.

In his recent interviews, Ahmadinejad presented himself as an advocate of improving relations with the United States and Saudi Arabia. During and after his presidency, he has written letters to world leaders advocating peace. Although this sounded unbelievable when he was in power (2005 – 2013), those who read his interviews may have forgotten his anti-US rhetoric. His friendly sentiments toward Saudi Arabia has remained unchanged though.

"Why shouldn't we be able to make peace with the United States? Is there any problem if we wish to maintain friendly ties with the Americans?" asked Ahmadinejad.

He said: "We should discuss relations with the United States in open debates. All nations should be friends with each other."

During the past four years, Ahmadinejad criticized the performance of non-elected institutions including the Judiciary and the state television, both under the supervision of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and called for an investigation of the financial entities operating under Khamenei's aegis and called for free and fair elections in Iran. Meanwhile, he was one of the first public figures who questioned the validity and lack of transparency of the Comprehensive Cooperation Document signed by China and Iran.

Responding to those who continue criticizing him eight years after the end of his presidency, Ahmadinejad said jokingly: "They blame me for everything, even the for the invasion of Iran by Mongols in the 13th century!"