Mehdi Karroubi
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Hojjat ol-Eslam Mehdi Karroubi (مهدی کروبی ; born 1939? in Aligoudarz in Lorestan) is an Iranian politician and cleric, the resigned chairman and founding member of the Association of Combatant Clerics party. He was the Speaker of the Iranian parliament from 2000 to 2004, and from 1989 to 1992, and a presidential candidate in the 2005 presidential election.
Karroubi was also a candidate in the 2004 parliamentary elections in Tehran, but after he ranked thirty-first in the first round, where thirty representatives were chosen, he withdrew from the second round.
Karroubi is a critic of the Guardian Council but at the same time supports the Supreme Leader, and calls himself a follower of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He was an Advisor to the Supreme Leader and a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, by appointment of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, until he resigned from all his political posts on June 19, 2005 after the first round of the 2005 presidential election (see below).
Karroubi considers himself a pragmatic reformist and is an ethnic Lur.
[edit] Presidential campaign
Karroubi was among the candidates of the reformists for the presidential election of 2005, where he finished third in the vote count, closely following the frontrunners, ex-president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. As neither gathered a majority of the vote, a run-off election was be held on June 24, 2005, won by Ahmadinejad.
After the announcement of the election results, Karroubi alleged that a network of mosques, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and Basij militia forces, had been illegally used to generate and mobilize support for Ahmadinezhad. He then explicitly alleged Mojtaba Khamenei, a son of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, among the conspirators. After that, Ayatollah Khamenei wrote to Karroubi, characterizing these allegations as "below his dignity" and warning that they would "will result in a crisis" in Iran, which he would not allow. Karroubi responded in an open letter, resigning from all his political posts, including that of advisor to the Supreme Leader and a member of Expediency Discernment Council, on both of which he had been installed by Khamenei. The day after, on June 20, a few reformist morning newspapers, Eghbal, Hayat-e No, Aftab-e Yazd, and Etemad were stopped from distribution by the prosecutor-general of Tehran, Saeed Mortazavi, for publishing Karroubi's letter, and finally banning Eghbal from publication.[1] On June 20, it was claimed that Karroubi was imprisoned in his house because of his letter.
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who ranked first in the first round, also pointed to organized and unjust interventions, alleged manipulation of the vote, and supported Karroubi's complaint.[2]
| Preceded by Hashemi Rafsanjani |
Speaker of Majles 1989-1992 |
Succeeded by Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri |
| Preceded by Ali Akbar Nategh Nouri |
Speaker of Majles 2000-2004 |
Succeeded by Gholam Ali Haddad-Adel |
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