Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran
| Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran ائتلاف آبادگران ایران اسلامی | |
|---|---|
 | |
| President | Mehdi Chamran |
| Deputy President | Nasrin Soltankhah |
| Founder | Mahmoud Ahmadinejad |
| Founded | April 11, 2003 |
| Headquarters | Tehran, Iran |
| Ideology | Conservatism[1] |
| Political position | Right-wing[1] to Far-right[2] |
| International affiliation | None |
|
Politics of Iran Political parties Elections | |
The Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran (Persian: ائتلاف آبادگران ایران اسلامی; E'telāf-e Ābādgarān-e Īrān-e Eslāmī), usually shortened to Abadgaran (آبادگران), is an Iranian political federation of parties and organizations. The alliance, mostly active in Tehran, won almost all of Tehran's seats in the Iranian Majlis election of 2004 and the Iranian City and Village Councils elections, 2003. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, former mayor of Tehran (who is chosen by Tehran's City Council) and ex-President of Iran, is considered one of the main figures in the alliance. They are the current leading party in Iran and won the 2009 elections. Some people criticize the council for choosing limited to right-wing leaders who can campaign for the election. This restricts the other political spectrums from participating in the political process.
According to the Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism, the Abadgaran "seems to have been formed in 2003 and is made up broadly of figures under the age of fifty, who are non-clerics".[3] Many of their figures are or were members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and their affiliates. The party is reportedly heavily supported by the Revolutionary Guards and is widely viewed as a political front for the organization.
Political historian Ervand Abrahamian credits the victory of Abadgaran and other conservatives in the 2003, 2004, and 2005 elections to the conservatives' retention of their core base of 25% of the voting population, their recruiting of war veteran candidates, their wooing of independents using the issue of national security, and most of all "because large numbers of women, college students, and other members of the salaried middle class" who make up the reformists' base of support "stayed home". Turnout in the 2004 Majlis election fell below 51%, for example.[4]
References
- 1 2 Antoine, Olivier; Sfeir, Roy (2007), The Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism, Columbia University Press, pp. 147–148
- ↑ Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran
- ↑ Columbia World Dictionary of Islamism, Roy, Olivier and Antoine Sfeir editors, Columbia University Press, 2007, p. 147
- ↑ Abrahamian, History of Modern Iran, (2008), p. 192
External links
- www.abadgaran.ir, Abadgaran's website
