Profile of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Friend or Foe?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was an obscure figure when he was appointed to be mayor of Tehran in the spring of 2003 - and was not much better known when he ran for president of Iran two years later.

But in a result that shocked observers, the hardline conservative came second in the field of seven candidates, setting up a run-off with former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

He reportedly spent no money on his campaign - but he was backed by powerful conservatives who used their network of mosques to mobilise support for him, the BBC's Iran analyst Sadeq Saba says.

When he became mayor of Tehran, the former revolutionary guard curtailed many of the reforms put in place by the moderates
who had run the city before him.

Iran's outgoing reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, barred Mr Ahmadinejad from attending cabinet meetings, a privilege normally accorded to mayors of the capital.

The mayor shut down fast-food restaurants and required male city employees to have beards and long sleeves.

And he took down an advertising campaign showing UK footballer David Beckham - the first Western celebrity used to promote a product in the country since Iran's 1979 revolution.

Man of the people

But he has a populist streak, calling his personal website Mardomyar, or the people's friend.

He has a reputation for living a simple life and campaigned against corruption.

He defends his country's nuclear programme, which has worried the US and European Union.
" They will not allow us to progress easily but we should not surrender to their will," his website says.

He has been cautious about re-establishing formal ties with the US, which were broken in 1979.

"America's unilateral move to sever ties with the Islamic Republic was aimed at destroying the Islamic revolution.... America was free to sever its ties with Iran, but it remains Iran's decision to re-establish relations with America."

Revolutionary credentials

He is backed by a group of younger, second-generation revolutionaries known as the Abadgaran, or Developers, who are strong in the Iranian parliament, the Majlis.

His website says he joined the Revolutionary Guards voluntarily after helping to found the student union which took over the US embassy in 1979.

He is reported to have served in covert operations in Iraq.

He was born in Garmsar, near Tehran, in 1956, the son of a blacksmith.

He holds a PhD in traffic and transport from Tehran's University of Science and Technology, where he was a lecturer.

Story from BBC NEWS
24 June 2005

MORE on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad:

President-elect of Iran and will become the president on August 2, 2005. He has also been the mayor of Tehran since 2003 and is widely considered to be a religious conservative with Islamist views.

Ahmadinejad was elected President of Iran on June 24, 2005 in the second round of the 2005 presidential election. His rival, who had won more votes in the first round, was the influential former-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, whom Ahmadinejad defeated with 61.69% of the vote out of the about twenty-eight million votes, a turnout of about 59.6%. This happened while Ahmadinejad had only secured 19.48% of the votes in the first round. Analysts say that Ahmadinejad's simple lifestyle and his populist views had won support especially amongst the poorer classes of people. Although Rafsanjani initially rejected the results and alleged a "dirty tricks" campaign, he later said the Iranian people should "assist" the president-elect nonetheless.

In his presidential campaign, Ahmadinejad had taken a populist approach, with emphasis on his own simple life, and had compared himself with Mohammad Ali Rajai, the second President of Iran — a claim that raised objections from Rajai's family. Ahmadinejad plans to create an "exemplary government for the world people" in Iran. He is a self-described principlist; that is, acting politically based on Islamic and revolutionary principles.

Ahmadinejad was the only presidential candidate who talked against future relations with the United States. Also, in an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting a few days before the elections, Ahmadinejad accused the United Nations of being "one-sided, stacked against the world of Islam." He has openly opposed the veto power given to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. In the same interview, he mentioned that "It is not just for a few states to sit and veto global approvals. Should such a privilege continue to exist, the Muslim world with a population of nearly 1.5 billion should be extended the same privilege." In addition, he has defended Iran's nuclear program and has accused "a few arrogant powers" of attempting to limit Iran's industrial and technological development in this and other fields. In a question by a Shargh journalist about the release of political prisoners in case he becomes president, Ahmadnizhad answered with a question: "Which political prisoners? The political prisoners in the United States?"

The main slogan for his campaign was "It's possible and we can do it" .

Politically, he is a member of the Islamic Society of Engineers, but he also has a powerful base inside Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran (also known as Abadgaran), an alliance which was divided in supporting him and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf in the first round of the presidential election.

During his campaign for the second round, he has said "we didn't participate in the revolution for turn-by-turn government [...] This revolution tries to reach a world-wide government". Also he has mentioned that he has an extended program on fighting terrorism in order to improve foreign relations and has called for greater ties with Iran's neighbours and ending visa requirements between states in the region, saying that "People should visit anywhere they wish freely. People should have freedom in their pilgrimages and tours."

Ahmadinejad is taking a populist-socialist approach to the economic issues, and has also mentioned that the stock exchanges in Iran must be reformed such that they would be more accessible to the public for direct investment in industrial sectors of Iranian economy.

Biography

Born in Garmsar, the son of a blacksmith, his family moved to Tehran when he was one year old. He entered Iran University of Science and Technology (IUST) as an undergraduate student of civil engineering in 1976. He continued his studies in the same university, entering the MSc program for civil engineering in 1986 and finally receiving his PhD in Traffic and transportation engineering and planning.

In 1980, Ahmadinejad was the head representative of IUST to the student gatherings that took sessions with the presence of the Ayatollah Khomeini. In these sessions, the foundations of the first Office for Strengthening Unity (daftar-e tahkim-e vahdat), the student organization behind seizure of the United States embassy which led to the Iran hostage crisis, were created. During the seizure of the embassy, Ahmadinejad suggested a simultaneous attempt against the Soviet Union embassy, which was voted down.

During the Iran-Iraq war, Ahmadinejad joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in 1986. After training at the headquarters, he saw action in extraterritorial covert operations against Kirkuk, Iraq. Later he also became the head engineer of the sixth army of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the head of the Corps' staff in the western provinces of Iran. After the war, he has served as vice governor and governor of Maku and Khoy, an Advisor to the Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, and the governor of the then newly established Ardabil province from 1993 to October 1997.

But Ahmadinejad was mostly an unknown figure in Iranian politics, until he was elected Mayor of Tehran by the second City Council of Tehran on May 3, 2003, after the city council elections of 2003 when a 12% turnout led to the election of the conservative candidates of Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran in Tehran. During his mayorship, he has reversed many of the changes put into effect by previous moderate and reformist mayors, putting serious religious emphasis on the activites of the cultural centers founded by previous mayors, going on the record with the separation of elevators of men and women in the municipality offices and suggesting the burial of the body of the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war in major city squares of Tehran.

As the Mayor of Tehran, Ahmadinejad also became the manager in charge of the daily newspaper Hamshahri, which led to dismissing Mohammad Atrianfar as the editor and replacing him with Alireza Sheikh-Attar, who was subsequently fired on June 13, 2005, a few days before the presidential elections, because of not supporting Ahmadinejad for the post. Sheikh-Atter was replaced with Ali Asghar Ash'ari, a previous Vice Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance during the ministership of Mostafa Mirsalim. During his managing, he has also fired Nafiseh Kouhnavard, one of Hamshahri's journalists, for asking a question from President Khatami, about the "red lines" of the regime and illegal parallel intelligence agencies, that Ahmadinejad didn't consider appropriate, and later accused Ms Kouhnavard of spying for Turkey and Republic of Azerbaijan.

Ahmadinejad is known to have quarreled with the reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who then barred him from attending meetings of the Board of Ministers, a privilege usually extended to mayors of Tehran. He has publicly criticized Khatami of not knowing about the daily problems of the general public. He usually avoids interviews with independent journalists, or avoids answering their questions by asking other questions and asking them not to ask "complicated questions".

After two years as Tehran mayor, Ahmadinejad was shortlisted in a list of sixty-five finalists for World Mayor 2005 out of the 550 nominated mayors. Only nine mayors were from Asia.

This article is from Babnet Tunisia.