Islamic Republican party

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The Islamic Republican Party (IRP) was formed in mid-1979 to assist the Iranian Revolution. The party was formed by a group of ayatollahs close to Khomeini in order to mobilize popular support for the Islamic Republic.

These revolutionary ayatollahs originally used the party to form a monopoly over the post revolutionary theocratic Iranian state. But it was not long before internal division began to surface.

According to Ahmad Mneisi in his article The Powershift within Iran's Rightwing, "while unanimous on the idea of a theological state and united under the umbrella of one party, the Islamic Republican Party (IRP), [the religious right] differed on a number of issues, such as the extent to which religion is to take hold of political life (the Velayet-e Faqih debate).

This difference in opinion led to the polarization of two wings within the IRP, one (rightwing) calling for the pursuit of a pragmatic policy aimed to consolidate the achievements of the revolution, the other (leftwing) focusing on exporting the revolution and calling for the state's monopoly over the economy. The divisions between the two wings led to the IRP dissolution in 1987, although under the charismatic rule of Ayatollah Khomeini, the frictions between the two wings remained low-key.

The leftist camp was made up of the Militant Clerics League (Rouhanioun), as well as the Revolution's Mujahidin. The rightwing camp was made up of the Militant Clerics Association (Rouhaniat), the League of the Teachers of the Qom Seminaries, and the Islamic Coalition Association. The differentiation that took place on the political scene led to the emergence of a rightwing current with an open-minded outlook, as opposed to the close-mindedness of the conventional rightwing. The open-minded current found its voice in the Executives of Construction Party (ECP) associated with former President Hashemi-Rafsanjani. The latter group embraced the openness characterizing Iranian domestic and foreign policy during Rasanjani's time. This was the first division that took place in the ranks of the Iranian right." [1]

Having served its puporse of establishing clerical authority, the IRP was dissolved abruptly in 1987, possibly to prevent the Party from becoming a threat to Khomeini's leadership.