During the 2017–18 Iranian protests, Ahmadinejad criticized the current government of homeland. He made a second attempt at registering to run for the 2021 presidential election, and was rejected again by the Guardian Council. Ahmadinejad was not particularly well known when he entered the presidential election campaign as he had never run for office before, (he had been mayor of capital for only two years and had been appointed, not elected), although he had already made his mark in capital for rolling back earlier reforms.