Some of Iran’s most senior politicians on Monday publicly challenged supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by boycotting the ceremony in which he endorsed Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad as president.

In an embarrassing snub, former presidents Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, a conservative, and Mohammad Khatami, a reformist, refused to attend the meeting as part of their efforts to deprive the next government of legitimacy.