A00656 - Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, President of Iran
Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Ex-President of Iran, Dies at 82
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Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in Tehran in 2005.CreditJames Hill for The New York Times
Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran and a founder of the Islamic republic, who navigated the opaque shoals of his country’s theocracy as one of its most enduring, wiliest and wealthiest leaders, died on Sunday in Tehran. He was 82.
His death was announced by Iranian state television.
As his career seesawed through periods of revolutionary zeal and confrontation with powerful conservative rivals, he was portrayed as a Machiavellian and often ruthless player in the power struggles among Iran’s elite factions, protected by his close association with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the revolutionary leader who overthrew the shah in 1979.
Known as a pragmatist and centrist inclined toward economic liberalism and political authoritarianism, Mr. Rafsanjani was accused by critics of corruption in amassing his fortune and of a readiness for harsh tactics to deal with dissent at home and abroad.
Argentina has accused Mr. Rafsanjani and other senior Iranian figures of complicity in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, in which 85 people died. In 1997, a German court concluded that the highest levels of Iran’s political leadership had ordered the killing five years earlier of four exiled Iranian Kurdish dissidents in Berlin. The events added weight to American assertions that Iran was a sponsor of terrorism. Mr. Rafsanjani was president from 1989 to 1997.
Yet many Western analysts believed that he sought a less confrontational relationship with the United States than other powerful figures in the Iranian hierarchy, for whom hostility toward Washington was a touchstone of ideological purity.
Mr. Rafsanjani, for instance, was credited with suggesting that “Death to America” be dropped from the litany of slogans at Tehran’s Friday prayers, a weekly moment of fervor in Iran’s political and religious calendar.
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Fatemeh Hashemi Rafsanjani, left, a daughter of Mr. Rafsanjani, with relatives and mourners around his coffin during a memorial ceremony in Tehran on Sunday.CreditAtta Kenare/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
In the closing stages of the Iran-Iraq war, which lasted from 1980 to 1988, Mr. Rafsanjani was appointed acting commander in chief of Iranian forces and was widely credited with persuading the leadership in Tehran to accept a United Nations resolution that ended the fighting.
For much of his career, he maintained roles in Parliament and on influential clerical panels, under the tutelage of Ayatollah Khomeini and then, less durably, of his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mr. Rafsanjani’s clout declined sharply during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, from 2005 to 2013. A populist conservative, Mr. Ahmadinejad had a strong following among poor Iranians, many of whom resented the affluence that endeared Mr. Rafsanjani to his wealthier compatriots.
In 2013, Mr. Rafsanjani was disqualified from standing in presidential elections and swung his political weight behind a moderate, longtime associate, Hassan Rouhani, who won the vote and went on to bring many of Mr. Rafsanjani’s supporters into his cabinet and to negotiate the nuclear agreement with the United States in 2015.
But Mr. Rafsanjani, himself an ayatollah, clashed with Ayatollah Khamenei, the supreme leader, over the extent to which Iran should modify its bellicose stance toward outsiders. In March, Mr. Rafsanjani wrote on Twitter that the “world of tomorrow is one of negotiations, not the world of missiles.”
Ayatollah Khamenei responded: “Enemies continue strengthening their military and missile sectors. How can anyone say the era of missiles has passed?”
Without identifying Mr. Rafsanjani by name, Ayatollah Khamenei said: “People say that tomorrow’s world is a world of negotiations and not a world of missiles. If they say this thoughtlessly, it shows they are thoughtless. However, if this is intentional, then this is treachery.”
OBITUARIESBy CAMILLA SCHICK and THOMAS ERDBRINK2:28What Rafsanjani's Death Means for Iran
Video
What Rafsanjani's Death Means for Iran
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president of Iran, died at 82 on Sunday. He was a president that favored closer ties with the West. Our Tehran bureau chief explains what Rafsanjani meant for Iran.
By CAMILLA SCHICK and THOMAS ERDBRINK on Publish DateJanuary 9, 2017. Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images.Watch in Times Video »
For all that, analysts in Tehran sensed that the pendulum was swinging toward the moderate camp, in which Mr. Rafsanjani played a defining role.
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was born on Aug. 23, 1934, in the village of Bahraman near the town of Rafsanjan in Iran’s southeastern Kerman Province. He was one of five sons and four daughters born to Mirza Ali Hashemi Bahramani, a prosperous pistachio farmer, and Mahbibi Safarian Hashemi.
At 14, he left his home village to study theology in the Muslim holy city of
For all that, analysts in Tehran sensed that the pendulum was swinging toward the moderate camp, in which Mr. Rafsanjani played a defining role.
Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was born on Aug. 23, 1934, in the village of Bahraman near the town of Rafsanjan in Iran’s southeastern Kerman Province. He was one of five sons and four daughters born to Mirza Ali Hashemi Bahramani, a prosperous pistachio farmer, and Mahbibi Safarian Hashemi. At 14, he left his home village to study theology in the Muslim holy city ofQum, Iran, where he became a disciple of Ayatollah Khomeini. By some accounts, at the time of his death, Mr. Rafsanjani was the last surviving member of an inner circle of Islamic revolutionaries active during Ayatollah Khomeini’s exile from 1964 to 1979, fighting an often bloody cat-and-mouse contest with the notorious Savak secret police loyal to Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi.
From 1963 to 1978, Mr. Rafsanjani was jailed five times for his opposition to the shah, but he remained in close contact with exiled clerics, including Ayatollah Khomeini, who was living in Najaf, Iraq.
During that period, in 1962, he married Effat Marashi, whose family included several respected Shiite clerics. They had five children — two daughters, Fatemeh and Faezeh, and three sons, Mohsen, Mehdi and Yaser.
Information on survivors was not immediately available.
In the turbulence after Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran, Mr. Rafsanjani was elected to Parliament, known as the Majlis, and became its speaker, serving in that position until 1989.
In many accounts of the maneuvering after Ayatollah Khomeini’s death in 1989, Mr. Rafsanjani was credited with promoting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as supreme leader, possibly in the mistaken belief that he would prove a pliant figure.
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Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, left; Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then the president, center; and Mr. Rafsanjani, second from right, at a memorial ceremony in Tehran in 2009 for Khadijeh Saqafi, the widow of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.CreditAgence France-Presse — Getty Images
Instead, Ayatollah Khamenei built his own power base. But Mr. Rafsanjani’s back-room dealings — often trading on his close relationship with Ayatollah Khomeini — earned him the nickname “kingmaker.”
During his presidency, Mr. Rafsanjani faced the challenge of reconstruction after the eight-year war with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. While his economic liberalism and privatization policies were popular among Iran’s entrepreneurial classes, many poor Iranians perceived no improvement in their plight.
As president, Mr. Rafsanjani showed little tolerance of dissent. While he sought improved ties with the West, he insisted on Iran’s right to develop its nuclear program and did not lift a fatwa declared by Ayatollah Khomeini that enjoined Muslims to kill the writer Salman Rushdie.
Moreover, critics asserted that the Rafsanjani presidency coincided with the spread of corruption and the infiltration by the hard-line Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps of important economic enterprises.
By 2013, Mr. Rafsanjani was said to have built a family business empire that owned Iran’s second biggest airline, exercised a near monopoly on the lucrative pistachio trade and controlled the largest private university, Azad. The family’s business interests also included real estate, construction and oil deals. In 2003, Forbes magazine said Mr. Rafsanjani’s personal wealth exceeded $1 billion.
His time as president left a bitter legacy for many Iranians who struggled to get by. In parliamentary elections, he fared badly and was awarded a seat only after the intervention of a high-powered clerical panel, prompting him to withdraw from the legislature.
In 2005, Mr. Rafsanjani sought to run for the presidency again but lost in a runoff to Mr. Ahmadinejad, whose tenure until 2013 was marked by hard-line nuclear policies, increasingly strained ties with the West and a mounting catalog of economic sanctions over Tehran’s efforts to expand its nuclear capability.
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Mr. Rafsanjani leading worshipers in Friday prayers at Tehran University in 2009.CreditFars News Agency, via Reuters
In presidential elections in June 2009, Mr. Rafsanjani supported the moderate Mir Hussein Moussavi, who lost to Mr. Ahmadinejad. The outcome was widely disputed, and many Iranian protesters died or were detained challenging the authorities in the streets. The protesters included Mr. Rafsanjani’s youngest daughter, Faezeh, who had campaigned for women’s rights and was arrested in large demonstrations against Mr. Ahmadinejad’s victory.
In September 2009, Mr. Rafsanjani seemed to be sidelined when the authorities barred him from addressing Friday prayers in Tehran on Quds Day, an annual display of solidarity with Palestinians. Mr. Rafsanjani had delivered the Quds Day sermon for almost 25 years, but the authorities in 2009 feared his address would provoke antigovernment protests.
Mr. Ahmadinejad’s second term was marked by mounting disputes with the United States and Israel over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions and its advances in missile technology. In 2011, Iran sided with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria during the Arab Spring, along with the Hezbollah Shiite militia in Lebanon, setting Tehran against Mr. Assad’s Western adversaries, including the United States.
In May 2013, Mr. Rafsanjani announced plans for a comeback, entering his name for presidential elections that June, calculating that, after the years of sanctions-driven decline under Mr. Ahmadinejad, Iranians would think that Mr. Rafsanjani’s reputation as a pragmatist and modernizer would offset some of the opprobrium attached to his staggering wealth. At the time, he argued that Iran was in an economic “danger zone” because of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s “amateurism.”
But he was disqualified by the Guardian Council, an electoral vetting body controlled by hard-liners. Mr. Rafsanjani had long served on another critical panel, the 88-member Assembly of Experts, which is charged with choosing a successor to the supreme leader. In 2016, Mr. Rafsanjani polled first in Tehran’s voting for the Assembly of Experts, whose role had assumed greater importance since Ayatollah Khamenei was treated for prostate cancer in 2014.
In the manner of Iran’s competing power centers, however, a hard-liner, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who was already the head of the Guardian Council, was elected by the Assembly of Experts as its chairman. The vote signaled new obstacles for the modest changes sought by Mr. Rouhani in running the Islamic republic.
In another controversy, in May 2016, Mr. Rafsanjani was drawn into a ferocious debate over a meeting between his activist daughter, Faezeh, and Fariba Kamalabadi, a leader of the Baha’is, a minority religious group regarded by the clerical hierarchy as impure pagans.
Mr. Rafsanjani showed little sympathy for his daughter, calling the Baha’is “heretics” and saying publicly that his daughter had “committed a wrong deed” and should be ashamed of herself.
Death of Iran’s Rafsanjani Removes Influential Voice Against Hard-Liners
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Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president of Iran, in Tehran in 2015.CreditEbrahim Noroozi/Associated Press
TEHRAN - With the death of Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Sunday, Iran's political factions knew immediately that any space by reformers to maneuver had just significantly decreased. Change had come, and it did not favor those seeking to turn Iran into a less revolutionary country with more tolerance and outreach to the West -- especially the United States. Mr. Rafsanjani, a former president who helped found the Islamic republic, had been the one man too large to be sidelined by conservative hard-liners. Now he was suddenly gone, dead from what state media described as cardiac arrest — and with no one influential enough to fill his shoes.
Iran’s long-marginalized reformists and moderates, who would use Mr. Rafsanjani’s regular calls for more personal freedoms and requests to establish better relations with the United States to advance their political agendas, suddenly felt exposed and weakened.
Who would now warn publicly against “Islamic fascism,” when the hard-liners sought to influence elections? Who would state openly that there should be a nuclear compromise?
Mr. Rafsanjani said things others would not dare to say, all agreed, and his voice had at least created some tolerance for debates.
“Hard-liners will be happy, but this is the start of a period of anxiety for many,” said Fazel Meybodi, a cleric from the holy city Qum who supports reforms in Iran. “His death disturbs the fragile balance we had in Iran.”
There simply are no replacements for Mr. Rafsanjani, analysts from all factions say.
His death also reflects the dwindling number of leaders from the generation that overthrew the shah nearly four decades ago. Most are now in their 80s or even older.
“It is a very powerful reminder that Iran is at the beginning of a major leadership transition that will play a very psychological role in Iran’s politics,” said Vali R. Nasr, a Middle East scholar who is dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
“I think this in some ways rattles Iran’s political system, in that it underscores the fact that with everything else going on — Syria, the nuclear deal — there will be a passing of the baton to the next generation,” Mr. Nasr said.
Two of Mr. Rafsanjani’s most important protégés — Hassan Rouhani, the current president, and Mohammad Khatami, a former president — both owe their political careers to him. But Mr. Rouhani, up for re-election this year, is fighting for his political life. Mr. Khatami, who has been sidelined by conservative adversaries for years, is now even weaker.
Mr. Rouhani managed to create a coalition to win the elections in 2013, with Mr. Rafsanjani’s support. Having successfully negotiated a nuclear agreement with the United States and other big powers, partly from encouragement by Mr. Rafsanjani, Mr. Rouhani promised a bright economic future for Iran — which has yet to happen.
With the demise of his mentor and protector, Iran’s president will find it hard to gather the same level of support he received four years ago with the backing of Mr. Rafsanjani, analysts say.
OBITUARIESBy CAMILLA SCHICK and THOMAS ERDBRINK2:28What Rafsanjani's Death Means for Iran
Video
What Rafsanjani's Death Means for Iran
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president of Iran, died at 82 on Sunday. He was a president that favored closer ties with the West. Our Tehran bureau chief explains what Rafsanjani meant for Iran.
By CAMILLA SCHICK and THOMAS ERDBRINK on Publish DateJanuary 9, 2017. Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images.Watch in Times Video »
“He was a very powerful figure for Mr. Rouhani to rely upon,” said Mohammad Marandi, a professor at Tehran University who is close to Iran’s leaders. “Many worked with him because of that support. The passing of Mr. Rafsanjani complicates the president’s position and makes his re-election less certain.”
Mr. Khatami won presidential elections in 1997 after having received Mr. Rafsanjani’s support, and led Iran through an era of greater personal freedoms and Western outreach that was quashed by unelected, hard-line centers of power.
“It is Mr. Khatami who should take on the burden of the late Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani’s responsibility,” said Mohammadreza Shamsolvaezin, a former reformist politician and activist. But Mr. Khatami is all but paralyzed politically. The hard-line-dominated judiciary has ordered all Iranian media not to carry his picture or even quote his website. Besides appearances at theater plays, religious gatherings and art exhibitions, Mr. Khatami has remained silent.
Mr. Rafsanjani could speak more freely than others, not only because of his revolutionary credentials, but also because of his friendship with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whom he helped become supreme leader in 1989.
Ayatollah Khamenei, who has skillfully played all Iranian factions, would never go as far as to completely isolate Mr. Rafsanjani, even when he supported protests that followed the disputed 2009 presidential election. While the presidential candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi were placed under house arrest in 2011 for their criticisms, Mr. Rafsanjani was stripped of several functions but never purged.
In a statement, Ayatollah Khamenei lamented the passing of Mr. Rafsanjani. Still, it was clear to many that Ayatollah Khamenei regarded him not only as a friend but a rival, whose absence could now make the role of supreme leader even more powerful.
“The loss of a comrade and ally, with whom I share a friendship that dates back to 59 years ago, is difficult and heart-rending,” said a statement posted on Ayatollah Khamenei’s website on Sunday. He also referred obliquely to their disagreements.
“Differences in views and interpretations of Islamic law in various points of this long time could never break the friendship,” the statement said. “After him, I cannot think of anyone with whom I share such long history and experience along the highs and lows of historical moments.”
Hard-liners joined in on the mourning, giving public statements of condolence, but with the realization that the political wind in Iran would now blow even more in their favor.
For them Mr. Rafsanjani had been a wild card, who could evoke rulings from the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that would oppose their rigid narrative of isolation and anti-Westernism. Mr. Rafsanjani was especially dangerous, they said, because of his conviction that Iran had changed and that establishing relations with the United States was the only way to secure the future of the Islamic republic.
Mr. Rafsanjani also had cordial ties with the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Iran’s principal rival in the Middle East, who share a mutual hostility with Ayatollah Khamenei.
Hard-liners also have faulted Mr. Rafsanjani for having founded a chain of affordable universities during the reconstruction that followed the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. Some conservatives now blame these schools for having helped sow what they regard as the dangerous modernist aspirations of Iran’s middle class.
Many conservatives in Iran also suspected Mr. Rafsanjani of having used his contacts to undercut Ayatollah Khamenei on issues where Ayatollah Khamenei would choose ideology over diplomacy. Mr. Rafsanjani preferred pragmatism and change to keep the ruling system in power.
“The invisible hands of the late Ali Akbar Rafsanjani are gone,” said Hamidreza Taraghi, a hard-line political analyst who has close relations with many of Iran’s top leaders. “This means an end to secret meetings by reformists and moderates seeking closer ties with America; from now on we can make decisions much easier and with more coordination.”
During the Iran–Iraq War Rafsanjani was the de facto commander-in-chief of the Iranian military. Rafsanjani was elected chairman of the Iranian parliament in 1980 and served until 1989. He played an important role in the choice of Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader.[6]
Rafsanjani became president of Iran after winning 1989 election. He served another term by winning election in 1993. In 2005 election he ran for a third term in office, placing first in the first round of elections but ultimately losing to rival Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the run-off. He and his family came under fire from conservatives for their support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi who led protests in 2009.
Rafsanjani has been described as having been a pragmatic Islamicconservative. The Economist called him a "veteran kingmaker."[7] He supported a free market position domestically, favoring privatization of state-owned industries and a moderate position internationally, seeking to avoid conflict with the United States and the West.[8] He was also founder and one of the Board of Trustees of Azad University.
Rafsanjani was born on 25 August 1934 in the village of Bahreman near the Persian city of Rafsanjan in Kerman Province, to a wealthy family of pistachio farmers.[13][14] He had eight siblings.[15] His father, Mirza Ali Hashemi Behramani, was one of Kerman's famous businessmen and a Pistachio merchant. His mother, Hajie Khanom Mahbibi Hashemi, died at the age of 90 on 21 December 1995.[16] One of his brothers, Mohammad Hashemi is the former director of IRIB.[17] Rafsanjani did not see himself as a peasant from childhood, according to family members.
When he was studied at Qom Seminary, he became interested in politics under Ruhollah Khomeini. He was one of the opposition of Mohammad Reza Shah's White Revolution and accompanied with Khomeini. With Khomeini's exile, Hashemi's role in the fight against the Shah and representing Khomeini in the country was highlighted. This opposition eventually led to his arrest and imprisonment. He was arrested for 7 times from 1960 until 1979 and was in jail for four years and 5 months in total in crime of clandestine activities against Pahlavi regime. Despite anti-Western attitude of revolutionaries, he had traveled to 20 states of the United States. Although individual major pre-revolutionary speeches against Shah regime, But Khomeini acted him as financial manager of revolutionary struggle as well as connector with other revolutionary groups.[20]
Among the groups that had a deep bond with Hashemi, was the Islamic Coalition Party, which is known as responsible for the assassination of former Prime MinisterHassan Ali Mansur. This communication was another reason for his arrest. In prison, he found the opportunity to become familiar with other groups opposed to the Shah. Hashemi joined Islamic Marxist group, the People's Mujahedin, but soon left them and the economic activity on the land developer's apartment in Tehran.
After the victory of Iranian Revolution, Hashemi became one of the members of Council of Islamic Revolution. He was one of the powerful members of the council from it's establishment. He was also deputy interior minister at that time and later became acting interior minister.
He was one of the 28 founders of Traditional right-wing Combatant Clergy Association and also one of the members of central committee of Islamic Republican Party at the first years of the revolution. Years later, it was him that requested IRP's dissolution. His political acumen and Khomeini's full trust helped Rafsanjani as one of the most powerful politicians in Iran at that time. At the time, he was the closest person to the Khomeini and ruled as his "eyes and ears". According to the Gold, Islamic Revolutionary Guards was established with the help of Hashemi.
At Iranian hostage crisis in 1980, Hashemi Rafsanjani mentioned it as "one of the largest manufacturer in the history". However, on the tenth anniversary of the revolution, he said in an interview that according to the experiences of these years, the hostage was "wrong".
Hashemi served as one of the Tehran's Friday Prayer Imams (for next thirty years), Representative of Khomeini at Defence High Council (after death of Mostafa Chamran) and Second-in-Command of Iran's Joint Chiefs of Staff in the last year of Iran-Iraq war. He forced Khomeini to accept to end the war. Only three months after his appointment as Iran's deputy commander-in-chief, Iran accepted United Nations Security Council Resolution 598 and eight year war was ended.[21]
He had a determining role in dismissal of Abulhassan Banisadr as commander-in-chief of Iranian military and then his impeachment in the parliament as Iran's first president in June 1981. In the summer of 1981, he protested to the veto of of the parliament's plan by the Guardian Council and informed it to Ruhollah Khomeini. This led to the establishment of Expediency Discernment Council, which later he chaired the council. He had an active rule in Iran–Contra affair, which was divulged by Mehdi Hashemi and failed. Mehdi Hashemi was executed but Rafsanjani was loser at internal dimension.[22]
Rafsanjani as the chairman of the parliament with then-MP and a next President Mohammad Khatami
In October 1981 presidential election, when he voted to Ali Khamenei, he said it's vote of "Imam (Khomeini), clerics and the parliament". During differences between Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Khamenei, Hashemi cleverly managed to keep the position favor or against these two perspectives and take the middle position. According to Bahman Bakhtiari, at that time Mousavi was leader of left-wing, and Khamenei the right-wing. With death of Khomeini (one of the supporters of leftists), lefts were weaked. In such circumstances, Hashemi leaped for a powerful presidency.[23]
Rafsanjani with newly elected Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, 1989
Rafsanjani adopted an "economy-first" policy, supporting a privatization policy against more state-owned economic tendencies in the Islamic Republic.[24] Another source describes his administration as "economically liberal, politically authoritarian, and philosophically traditional" which put him in confrontation with more radical deputies in the majority in the Majles of Iran.[25]
As president, Rafsanjani was credited with spurring Iran's reconstruction following the 1980-88 war with Iraq.[26] Rafsanjani was popular with the upper and middle classes, partially due to his economic reforms during his tenure and his support for human rights (in comparison to the Khomeini years) which have been widely perceived as successful for the most part.[citation needed]However, his reconstruction efforts failed to reach the rural or war zones where they were most needed, leaving him unpopular with the majority of the rural, veteran, and working class populations.[citation needed] His reforms, despite attempting to curb the powers of the ultra-conservatives, failed to do so, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards received increasing power from Khamenei during his presidency. He was also accused of corruption by both conservatives[27] and reformists,[28] and was known for tough crackdowns on dissent.
Rafsanjani advocated a free market economy. With the state's coffers full, Rafsanjani pursued an economic liberalization policy.[29] Rafsanjani's support for a deal with the United States over Iran's nuclear program and his free-market economic policies contrasted with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his allies, who advocate maintaining a hard line against Western intervention in the Middle East while pursuing a policy of economic redistribution to Iran's poor.[30] By espousing World Bank inspired structural adjustment policies, Rafsanjani desired a modern industrial-based economy integrated into the global economy.[31]
Rafsanjani urged universities to cooperate with industries. Turning to the quick pace of developments in today's world, he said that with "the world constantly changing, we should adjust ourselves to the conditions of our lifetime and make decisions according to present circumstances".[32] Among the projects he initiated are Islamic Azad University.[33][34]
Hashemi with some Iranian commanders of Iran-Iraq War
During his presidency, a period in which Rafsanjani is described by western media sources as having been the most powerful figure in Iran, people ordered executed by the judicial system of Iran included political dissidents, drug offenders, Communists, Kurds, Bahais, and even Islamic clerics.[35]
The Iranian Mojahedin were recognized as a terrorist organization by both the Iranian government as well as the United States CIA. Regarding the Mojahedin, Rafsanjani said (Ettela'at, 31 October 1981):
“
God's law prescribes four punishments for them (the Mojahedin). 1-Kill them. 2-Hang them, 3-Cut off their hands and feet 4-Banish them. If we had killed two hundred of them right after the Revolution, their numbers would not have mounted this way. I repeat that according to the Quran, we are determined to destroy all [Mojahedin] who display enmity against Islam".
”
Rafsanjani also worked with Khamenei to maintain the stability of government after the death of Khomeini.[36]
Following years of deterioration in foreign relations under Khomeini during the Iran-Iraq war, Rafsanjani sought to rebuild ties with Arab states[37] as well as with countries in Central Asia and the Caucasus, including Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.[38] However, relations with European countries and the United States remained poor, even though Rafsanjani had a track record of handling difficult situations and defusing crises.[39]
Rafsanjani has said that Iran is ready to assist Iraq, "expecting nothing in return". On the other hand, he has said that "peace and stability" is a function of the "evacuation of the occupiers."[41]
Iran gave humanitarian help to the victims of the conflict. Iran sent truckloads of food and medicine to Iraq, and thousands of Kuwaiti refugees were given shelter in Iran.[42][page needed]
Rafsanjani voiced support to Prince Abdullah's peace initiative and to "everything the Palestinians agree to". He also stated that what he called "Iran's international interests" must take precedence over those of Iranian allies in Syria and Lebanon.[39]
Ayatollah Rafsanjani is a supporter of Iran's nuclear program. In 2007 Rafsanjani reiterated that the use of weapons of mass destruction was not part of the Islamic Republic culture. Rafsanjani said: "You [US and allies] are saying that you cannot trust Iran would not use its nuclear achievements in the military industries, but we are ready to give you full assurances in this respect."[43] According to The Economist, he is regarded by many Iranians "as the only person with the guile and clout to strike a deal with the West to end economic sanctions" imposed upon the country due to its nuclear program.[44]
During the presidential term of Rafsanjani GNP did not reach beyond the $1.500 mark. In fact it remained below the needs of an average family. Also increasing the food prices was another economic situation in his term.[45]
Post-presidency, Rafsanjani delivered a sermon at Tehran University in the summer of 1999 praising government use of force to suppress student demonstrations.[35]
In 2000, in the first election after the end of his presidency, Rafsanjani ran again for Parliament. In the Tehran contest, Rafsanjani came in 30th, or last, place. At first he was not among the 30 representatives of Tehran elected, as announced by the Iranian Ministry of the Interior, but the Council of Guardians then ruled numerous ballots void, leading to accusations of ballot fraud in Rafsanjani's favor.[35] Rafsanjani thus became a Majlis representative, but resigned before being sworn in. He explained that he felt he was "able to serve the people better in other posts".[citation needed]
In December 2006, Rafsanjani was elected to the Assembly of Experts representing Tehran with more than 1.5 million votes, which was more than any other candidate. Ahmadinejad opponents won majority of local election seats. On 4 September 2007 he was elected Chairman of the Assembly of Experts, the body that selects Iran's supreme leader, in what was considered a blow to the supporters of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He won the chairmanship with 41 votes of the 76 cast. His ultraconservative opponent, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, received 31 votes.[46] Rafsanjani was re-elected to the position on 10 March 2009, running against Mohammad Yazdi. He received 51 votes compared to Yazdi's 26.[47][48] On 8 March 2011, he withdrew from the election and Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani was elected as his replacement.[49]
Rafsanjani has advocated freedom of expression, tolerance and civil society. In a speech on 17 July 2009, Rafsanjani criticized restriction of media and suppression of activists, and put emphasis on the role and vote of people in the Islamic Republic constitution.[50][51][52] The event has been considered by analysts as the most important and most turbulent Friday prayer in the history of contemporary Iran.[53] Nearly 1.5 to 2.5 million people attended the speech in Tehran.[54]
During the 2009 Presidential election, Rafsanjani's former rival and incumbent president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, won a disputed landslide victory over challenger Mir-Hossein Mousavi. His daughter was arrested on 21 June by plain clothes Basij during the subsequent protest[55] and later sentenced to six months in jail on charges of spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic.[56]
Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani was chairman of the Assembly of Experts, which is responsible for appointing or removing the Supreme Leader, who has been rumored to not be in the best of health.[57] After the disputed results of the election were certified by the Supreme Leader, Rafsanjani was reported to have called a meeting of the Assembly of Experts, but it is unknown what the outcome or disposition of this meeting actually was.[58] During this time Rafsanjani relocated from Tehran to Qom, where the country's religious leaders sit. However, for the most part, Rafsanjani was silent about the controversial 12 June election and its aftermath.[59]
On 17 July 2009, Rafsanjani publicly addressed the election crisis, mass arrests and the issue of freedom of expression during Friday prayers. The prayers witnessed an extremely large crowd that resembled the Friday prayers early after the revolution. Supporters of both reformist and conservative parties took part in the event. During prayers, Rafsanjani argued the following:[60]
All of us the establishment, the security forces, police, parliament and even protestors should move within the framework of law... We should open the doors to debates. We should not keep so many people in prison. We should free them to take care of their families. ... It is impossible to restore public confidence overnight, but we have to let everyone speak out. ... We should have logical and brotherly discussions and our people will make their judgments. ... We should let our media write within the framework of the law and we should not impose restrictions on them. ... We should let our media even criticize us. Our security forces, our police and other organs have to guarantee such a climate for criticism.[61]
His support for the Green Movement reinvigorated his image among the urban middle-class segments of Iranian society who made up the bulk of the movement and solidified Rafsanjani's role as a backer of factions within Iran that advocated the reform of the system to ensure its survival.
On 8 March 2011 Rafsanjani lost his post as chairman of the powerful Assembly of Experts, replaced by Ayatollah Mohammad-Reza Mahdavi Kani. Rafsanjani stated that he withdrew from the election for chairman to "avoid division." The loss was said to be the result of intensive lobbying "in recent weeks" by "hardliners and supporters" of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and part of Rafsanjani's gradual loss of power over the years.[62] It was said that Rafsanjani would be dismissed as head of Expediency Discernment Council but he was re-appointed for another five years term on 14 March 2012 by Ali Khamenei.[citation needed]
Hashemi announcing his candidacy with his daughter, Fatemeh accompanied him.
On 11 May 2013, Rafsanjani registered for the 14 June presidential election with just minutes to spare.[63] Former reformist president Mohammad Khatami endorsed him.[64] However, on 21 May 2013, Iran's electoral center, Guardian Council disqualified him from standing in the presidential election.[65] On 11 June 2013, Rafsanjani endorsed moderate Hassan Rouhani in the elections for Iran's presidency saying the candidate was "more suitable" than others for presidency.[66]
Reformers had enjoyed his support in recent years, helping to tilt the balance of power towards more moderate forces who managed to win the presidential poll in 2013 with the victory of Hassan Rouhani and parliamentary elections in 2016.
Rafsanjani could not act as a political horse trader—for example, he could not prevent reformist candidates from being disqualified—but his role in guiding reformist politicians was a crucial one and, up to a point, he was able to influence Khamenei by preventing him from making one-sided decisions. Hardliners now have a chance to completely surround the Supreme Leader and block moderate influences. Rafsanjani played politics the way it was played during the time of Ayatollah Khomeini—or at least, that is what he wanted you to believe—but with his death the so-called "Imam's Line," key figures from the beginning of the Revolution, who were close to Khomeini—is near its end.[67]
He also kept his traditional connections with the clergy in the holy city of Qom and with conservative forces within the political establishment, which made it difficult for hardliners to form a strong front against moderate forces.[68]
After winning reelection on his seat at Assembly of Experts as Tehran district's first person, Rafsanjani announced that it was the last time that he joined an election as a candidate and will be retired from politics at the end of the current term. He also said "Now I can die with peace of mind" after sawing election of a moderate parliament in the 2016 legislative election.[69]
Rafsanjani died on 8 January 2017, at 19:30 (UTC+03:30) following a heart attack in Tajrish's Shohada-ye Tajrish Hospital in north Tehran, as reported by Iranian state-run media.[70][71] He was 82 years old at the time of his death. The government announced three days of national mourning and a public holiday on his funeral day. Black banners were raised in Tehran and other cities and some posters showed the Supreme Leader and Rafsanjani together smiling. Five days of mourning also observed in the southern province of Kerman, where Ayatollah Rafsanjani's hometown of Rafsanjan is located.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Supreme Leader of Iran called Rafsanjani an "old friend and comrade" and said his loss is "difficult and life-decreasing." He hailed a "companion of struggle" despite their differences, saying this was a "difficult" loss. He noted that Rafsanjani's loss was overwhelming and very hard to bear, adding that their cooperation and friendship had lasted for 59 years. President Hassan Rouhani praised Rafsanjani as a great man of the Islamic Revolution. "The soul of the great man of the revolution, symbol of patience and resistance, has gone to Heaven", saying Rouhani on his Twitter.[73] President Rouhani and his administration appeared at a Jamaran Huseinieh in northern Tehran, where Rafsanjani's body was brought. Residents in the Iranian capital also expressed their grief at the loss of Rafsanjani.[74]Chairman of the Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's Judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Larijani, Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security CouncilAli Shamkhani, former presidents Mohammad Khatami and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi and many more also expressed their condolences.[75] Commanders of Iranian Army and Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution also condolences Rafsanjani's death. Major General Qasem Soleimani also attended Hashemi's farewell ceremony. At the start of a parliament session on the next day, parliament speaker Ali Larijani paid tribute to the late leader, describing Rafsanjani as "a man for hard days whose name has been always been tied to the revolution and it will always be so."[76]
Iranian newspapers across the political spectrum are paying tribute to Rafsanjani. Most front pages are splashed with pictures and captions highlighting his central role in Iranian politics. Many have used black as a background. "Iran mourns the death of contemporary Amir Kabir," moderate Arman-e Emruz announces, comparing Rafsanjani to the man widely considered to be Iran's first reformer and moderniser. An "irretrievable loss", moderate daily Iran laments, while reformist Aftab-e Yazd, under a picture of Rafsanjani's grieving children, affirms that "Iran is mourning". Even hard-line dailies are joining in the accolades. Javan notes his closeness to the founder of the Islamic republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in its headline: "Man of tough days of fighting and friend of Imam and the Leader rushes to meet God." Hard-line Vatan-e-Emrooz describes him as "one of the pillars" and "a genuine figure" of Iran's Islamic Revolution. Sadegh Zibakalam, a Tehran university professor and prominent reformist also described Rafsanjani as "patiently stood against extremism", and said he will remember in history as a hero like Amir Kabir [Iranian reformist chancellor slain in 1851] and Mohammad Mosaddegh".
Rafsanjani's death was also react between the world leaders. Russian President Vladimir Putin condolences the decease of Rafsanjani in a message to the Iranian President. Persian Gulf states heads sent condolences after his death, signaling appreciation for a pragmatist who sought regional detente. The heads of state of Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates expressed condolences after the death of Rafsanjani. A condolence message from King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa was sent to Iran said he was "praying to almighty God for his soul to rest in peace and inspire Iran's president, its people and his family." Bahraini Foreign Minister, Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa, whose country has tense relations with Iran, voiced condolences on Twitter over Rafsanjani's death. Kuwait's Emir, Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, sent condolences over Rafsanjani, saying he "prayed to Allah the almighty to bestow blessings on the deceased."[77] Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani also sent a condolence message.[78] Oman's ruler, Sultan Qaboos, sent a telegram of condolence to Iran over Rafsanjani's death. Oman King Abdullah II also sent a condolence message. Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan expressed his condolences over the loss of Rafsanjani and extended his sympathy to the Ayatollah's family.[79] Writing on his official Twitter account, UAE Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Mohammed Qarqash described Rafsanjani as "one of the voices of political realism and moderation". Condolence messages also came from pro-Iranian Arab forces include Lebanon's Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthi group.[80] Iraqi President Fuad Masum also offered his condolences, while voicing his appreciation for Ayatollah Rafsanjani's efforts backing the people of Iraq. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in a message on his Twitter page extended his condolences on the demise of late Chairman of the State Expediency Council Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. "With much sorrow I received the news on the passing away of former Iranian President (Akbar) Hashemi Rafsanjani and I wish him God's blessing and condole with his bereaved family and the Iranian nation on his demise," Cavusoglu said in his Twitter message. Former Turkish PresidentAbdullah Gül also extended his condolences on Ayatollah Rafsanjani's death.[81] Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif expressed deep grief over the death of former President of Iran. He said Rafsanjani was an influential figure not only in Iran but also a symbol of reconciliatory peace efforts at the international level.[82] Tajik President Emomali Rahmon has also sent a message of condolence to his Iranian counterpart Hassan Rouhani, saying he is grieved at the news of demise of the "prominent figure" of the Islamic Republic of Iran. South African President Jacob Zuma issued a statement saying his nation "acknowledges President Rafsanjani's pioneering spirit in establishing stronger trade and political ties with African countries and South Africa." Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad,[83]Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani and country's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika[84] Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, Lebanese President Michel Aoun, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Iraq's former prime minister and current Vice President Nouri al-Maliki, Turkish Minister of European Union Affairs Ömer Çelik and the UN resident coordinator in Iran, Gary Lewis were also among world leaders sending condolences.[85]
A US Department of State official also referred to Ayatollah Rafsanjani as a "prominent figure" throughout the history of Iran in a statement. "We send our condolences to his family and loved ones," said the statement.[86]White House press secretary Josh Earnest also said Rafsanjani was a "prominent figure" and a "consequential figure" in Iran's history. He said the United States was sending its condolences to the Iranian people, but Earnest declined to speculate on how Rafsanjani's death might affect future Iranian policy toward the United States. Chinese Foreign Ministry also published a statement and called Rafsanjani an "influential leader". Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang said that China offered sympathy to the government and people of Iran, as well as Rafsanjani's relatives. Lu also spoke highly of Rafsanjani's contributions to bilateral ties between Iran and China during his presidency.[87]
Hours after his death, his office announced that a state funeral will be held on 11 January in University of Tehran, with the place of burial being Mausoleum of Ruhollah Khomeini. It was previously announced he will be buried at Fatima Masumeh Shrine in Qom, but his family decided to change the place of burial.[88] Thousands of the people and government officials attended the ceremony and Ali Khamenei performed the ritual prayer for the deceased (Salat al-Mayyit) in his funeral.[89][90] Some foreign leaders like Iraqi foreign minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Lebanon's Nabih Berri and Armenian parliament speaker Galust Sahakyan also attended the event. The truck carrying Rafsanjani's coffin topped with his trademark white turban inched down Enqelab Street, one of the capital's main thoroughfares.[91] Rafsanjani was buried next to the former supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini.[92]
Iran's Army starch guard paying tribute to the Rafsanjani.
The names of the victims appear in the commemorative plaque in front of Mykonos restaurant in Berlin
Rafsanjani was sought by the Argentinian government for ordering the 1994 AMIA bombing in Buenos Aires.[93] It was based on the allegation that senior Iranian officials planned the attack in an August 1993 meeting, including Khamanei, the Supreme Leader, Mohammad Hejazi, Khamanei's intelligence and security advisor, Rafsanjani, then president, Ali Fallahian, then intelligence minister, and Ali Akbar Velayati, then foreign minister.[94]
In 1997 during the Mykonos trial in Germany, it was declared that Rafsanjani, the then president of Iran, alongside of Ayatollah Khamenei, Velayati and Fallahian had a role in the assassination of Iran's opposition activists in Europe.
After his loss at the presidential elections in 2005, a growing tension between him and President Ahmadinejad arose. Rafsanjani has criticized Ahmadinejad's administration several times for conducting a purge of government officials,[95] slow move towards privatization[96] and recently hostile foreign policy in particular the atomic energy policy.[97] In return Ahmadinejad fought back that Rafsanjani failed to differentiate privatization with the corrupt takeover of government-owned companies and of foreign policies which led to sanctions against Iran in 1995 and 1996.[98][99] He also implicitly denounced Rafsanjani and his followers by calling those who criticize his nuclear program as "traitors".[100]
During a debate with Mir-Hossein Moussavi in 2009 presidential election, Ahmadinejad accused Hashemi of corruption. Hashemi released an open letter in which he complained about what he called the president's "insults, lies and false allegations" and asked the country's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to intervene.[101]
According to him, the problem of having political party undertook by common sense and people. In other word Islam has not definite opinion on parties. Islam placed the duty of having party on the shoulders of peoples themselves. Islam has not any disagreement with partition. He believes that all parties before Islamic revolution in Iran controlled by Shah Regime and there was no original party in that time. In fact with victory of Islamic revolution, the existence of part becomes necessary for revolution.[102]
Although Rafsanjani was a member of the pragmatic-conservative Combatant Clergy Association, he had a close bond to the reformist Kargozaran party. He was regarded as flip-flopping between conservative and reformist camps since the election of Mohammad Khatami, supporting reformers in that election, but going back to the conservative camp in the 2000 parliamentary elections as a result of the reformist party severely criticizing and refusing to accept him as their candidate. Reformists, including Akbar Ganji, accused him of involvement in murdering dissidents and writers during his presidency. In the end, the major differences between the Kargozaran and the reformists party weakened both and eventually resulted in their loss at the presidential elections in 2005. However, Rafsanjani regained close ties with the reformers since he lost the 2005 presidential elections to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[29]
Hashemi refers to the point that the Islamic Republican Party established in the early years of revolution in Iran. Ruhollah Khomeini, at first step, was disagree with establishment of Party because he known the establishment of party as something gradually. But After consultation of Hashemi with Khomeini, the opinion of Khomeini has changed. There were many negotiations and consultations on the instructions of Party .somebodies like Yadollah Sahabi and Habibollah Peyman were to communicate but after a while there were no communication with them. Although Mortaza Motahhari had not any disagreement to establishing party but at the same time he hadn’t any communication with party. In fact, the idea of establishment of republic party was necessary in order to give the Mullahs an organization and political collection. The party has established formally on 17 February 1979, namely two weeks after the victory of Islamic Revolution. The members of the party even determined their members in Kanoon Touhid in early days. The financial expenses of party originated from the voluntary aids of people. At first, religious scholars or clerics took part in the party. In early days there were no financial problem but after a while the problem appeared. Khomeini tried to give financial aid to the party with giving money. The members primarily chose from revolutionary individuals and believed persons.[103]
From his marriage to Effat Marashi in 1958, Rafsanjani had three sons: Mohsen, Mehdi, and Yasser, as well as two daughters, Fatemeh and Faezeh. Only Faezeh Hashemi chose a political life, which led to her becoming a Majlis representative and then the publisher of the weekly newspaper Zan (meaning Woman in English), which was closed in February 1999.[104] In 2016, his daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, sparked a debate on religious persecution in Iran by visiting the female leader of the persecuted Bahai religious minority. The two women had met in prison, when Faezeh was serving a six-month sentence for "spreading propaganda against the system." Another Rafsanjani's daughter, Fatemeh is President of Charity Foundation for Special Diseases and Mohsen was chairman of Tehran Metro Organization and now is vice president of Azad University. His wife, Effat is the granddaughter of Mohammed Kazem Yazdi.
Rafsanjani family has given their name from Haj Hashem, who was one of the Nogh's real estate men. When Akbar Hashemi born, his father was a rich businessman.
After the revolution, he was known for his assets. Forbes named him as one of the richest persons in Iran in 2003, with an exceeded $1 billion assets. According to a U.S. congressional report, only Pistachio trade of his Rafsanjan gardens that is controlled by his cousin is more than 746 million U.S. Dollar.
Rafsanjani speaking with medias after first assassination
Only months after the revolution, Rafsanjani was shot once in the stomach by gunmen[107] from one of the groups vying for power amid the political turmoil. He was not seriously wounded—and neither was his wife, who jumped in front to shield him from the attack. "Great men of history do not die," Khomeini said in announcing that Rafsanjani had survived.
The Combat Era is the title of his book on the events before the 1979 revolution. His devotion to Rouhollah Khomeini, his sympathy with the national movement including Mohammad Mosaddegh and Mahdi Bazargan is seen in this book. In this book, he even shows interest in western democracy.[108]
Amir Kabir: the Hero of Fighting against Imperialism (1968)[109]
In addition, the full text of his Friday Prayer sermons and his congress keynote speeches are also published separately.[111]Based on his diary, viewpoints, speeches and interviews, several independent books have been published so far.
Encyclopedia of Quran (Farhang-e- Quran)
The book in fact considered as a key to the subjects and concepts of Quran. Of course the book has written by Hashemi and other scholars.[112]
Although he was a close follower of Ayatollah Khomeini and considered as a central elite during Islamic revolution, at the same time he was fan of reconstruction of shattered country after war and according to this fact, he selected his cabinets from western-educated technocrats and social reformers. His cabinet largely was a reformist one. Rafsanjani acquired both the support of Imam Khomeini in one hand and Majlis in other hand. In fact, he tried to transfer the economy towards the free-market system. There was a gap among Rafsanjani and Khatami and reform agenda because of his partnership with those who were conservative. The first face of reformist movements began by Rafsanjani.[113]
shemi Rafsanjani, in full Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, also spelled ʿAlī Akbar Hāshimī Rafsanjānī (born 1934, Rafsanjān, Iran—died January 8, 2017, Tehrān), Iranian cleric and politician, who was president of Iran from 1989 to 1997.
Rafsanjani was the son of a prosperous farmer in the town of Rafsanjān, in the Kermān region of Iran. He moved to the Shīʿite holy city of Qom in 1948 to pursue his religious studies, and in 1958 he became a disciple of Ruhollah Khomeini. Rafsanjani became a hojatoleslām (from the Arabic ḥujjat al-Islām: “proof of Islam”), the second highest Shīʿite Muslim rank (after that of ayatollah). Like Khomeini, he opposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s modernization program, and when Khomeini was exiled from Iran in 1962, Rafsanjani became his chief fund-raiser inside the country. He spent the years 1975–78 in jail in Iran on charges of links with left-wing terrorists.
With the shah’s overthrow and Khomeini’s return to Iran in 1979, Rafsanjani became one of Khomeini’s chief lieutenants. He helped found the Islamic Republican Party, served on the Revolutionary Council, and was acting interior minister during the early years of the revolution. He was also elected to the Majles (Islamic Consultative Assembly) in 1980, and he became that body’s speaker the same year. As the dominant voice in the Majles for the next nine years, Rafsanjani gradually emerged as the second most powerful figure in Iran’s government. He was intimately involved in Iran’s prosecution of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), and he helped persuade Khomeini to agree to the cease-fire of August 1988 that effectively ended the war.
After Khomeini’s death in June 1989, Rafsanjani was instrumental in securing the position of Pres. Ali Khamenei—who was hastily elevated from the less lofty position of hojatoleslām to the rank of ayatollah—as Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader. Rafsanjani himself was elected Iran’s president by an overwhelming margin shortly thereafter. He quickly garnered increased powers for a previously weak executive office, and he showed considerable political skill in promoting his pragmatic policies in the face of resistance from Islamic hard-liners. Rafsanjani favoured reducing Iran’s international isolation and renewing its ties with Europe as part of a strategy to use foreign investment and free enterprise to revive the country’s war-torn economy. Domestically, he implemented family-planning practices, in effect reversing previous policies encouraging population growth. Although human rights abuses and the suppression of dissent continued, there was a degree of cultural openness under Rafsanjani, and a certain level of criticism was tolerated. Nevertheless, demonstrations and protests against the government in the early 1990s were harshly repressed.
Rafsanjani was reelected in 1993, though his victory was not as overwhelming as in 1989; voter turnout was significantly lower, and he won only two-thirds of the votes in 1993 as compared with more than nine-tenths four years earlier. Barred by the constitution from serving a third consecutive term in office, Rafsanjani nevertheless remained active in political life, serving several terms as head of the Committee to Determine the Expediency of the Islamic Order, a body created to mediate disputes between the Majles and the Council of Guardians (itself empowered to vet legislation and oversee elections).
In the elections to the Majles in 2000, Rafsanjani initially fared poorly—he finished 30th in Tehrān, capturing that city’s final seat. However, the Council of Guardians contended that the election had been marred by fraud, and they ordered a recount; after numerous votes had been discounted and the candidates shuffled, Rafsanjani’s position improved to 20th. This new outcome was criticized by many to be the result of manipulation, and Rafsanjani resigned his seat.
Following Mohammad Khatami’s two-term presidency (1997–2005), Rafsanjani again sought the presidency in 2005. Although largely considered the favourite, Rafsanjani failed to secure a majority by a significant margin and was defeated by the mayor of Tehrān, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was backed by the country’s conservative establishment.
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In 2007 Rafsanjani was elected to lead the Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Khobregān), a body empowered to select Iran’s supreme leader. Rafsanjani assumed his position at the head of this assembly while continuing to lead the Committee to Determine the Expediency of the Islamic Order.
In the presidential election of 2009 Rafsanjani was a vocal critic of the incumbent, President Ahmadinejad, and made clear his support of Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister (1981–89) and the leading reformist candidate. When Ahmadinejad was declared the victor by a large margin in spite of Mousavi’s apparent popularity and a record turnout that many thought would favour the reformist contingent, questions of voting irregularities were raised by the opposition. Amid the cycle of protests that followed the election, several of Rafsanjani’s relatives, including his daughter, were briefly detained. Rafsanjani himself was conspicuously absent from the public sphere and noticeably silent in the days that followed the election—a silence some observers suggested belied his activity behind the scenes, although the details of his whereabouts and the precise nature his efforts remained subject to speculation.
In 2011 Rafsanjani did not run for another term as leader of the Assembly of Experts after Ahmadinejad supporters waged a campaign to unseat him, alleging that he was too close to the opposition. He was succeeded by Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani—a traditional conservative supported by the pro-Ahmadinejad camp—who won election in March.
In May 2013 Rafsanjani registered to be a candidate in Iran’s upcoming presidential election, attracting the support of prominent reformers, including Mohammad Khatami. His candidacy ended abruptly later that month when he was disqualified from running by the Council of the Guardians. Rafsanjani protested his disqualification in the media but did not appeal.
Hashemi Rafsanjani, in full Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, also spelled ʿAlī Akbar Hāshimī Rafsanjānī (b. 1934, Rafsanjān, Iran — d. January 8, 2017, Tehrān, Iran), was an Iranian cleric and politician, who was President of Iran from 1989 to 1997.
Rafsanjani was the son of a prosperous pistachio farmer in the town of Rafsanjān, in the Kerman region of Iran. He moved to the Shi'ite holy city of Qom in 1948 to pursue his religious studies, and in 1958 he became a disciple of Ruhollah Khomeini. Rafsanjani became a hojatoleslām (from the Arabic ḥujjat al-Islām: “proof of Islam”), the second highest Shīʿite Muslim rank (after that of ayatollah). Like Khomeini, he opposed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's modernization program, and when Khomeini was exiled from Iran in 1962, Rafsanjani became his chief fund-raiser inside the country. He spent the years 1975–78 in jail in Iran on charges of links with left-wing terrorists.
With the shah’s overthrow and Khomeini’s return to Iran in 1979, Rafsanjani became one of Khomeini’s chief lieutenants. He helped found the Islamic Republican Party, served on the Revolutionary Council, and was acting interior minister during the early years of the revolution. He was also elected to the Majles (Islamic Consultative Assembly) in 1980, and he became that body’s speaker the same year. As the dominant voice in the Majles for the next nine years, Rafsanjani gradually emerged as the second most powerful figure in Iran’s government. He was intimately involved in Iran’s prosecution of the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88), and he helped persuade Khomeini to agree to the cease-fire of August 1988 that effectively ended the war.
After Khomeini’s death in June 1989, Rafsanjani was instrumental in securing the position of Ali Khamenei — who was hastily elevated from the less lofty position of hojatoleslām to the rank of ayatollah—as Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader. Rafsanjani himself was elected Iran’s president by an overwhelming margin shortly thereafter. He quickly garnered increased powers for a previously weak executive office, and he showed considerable political skill in promoting his pragmatic policies in the face of resistance from Islamic hard-liners. Rafsanjani favored reducing Iran’s international isolation and renewing its ties with Europe as part of a strategy to use foreign investment and free enterprise to revive the country’s war-torn economy. Domestically, he implemented family-planning practices, in effect reversing previous policies encouraging population growth. Although human rights abuses and the suppression of dissent continued, there was a degree of cultural openness under Rafsanjani, and a certain level of criticism was tolerated. Nevertheless, demonstrations and protests against the government in the early 1990s were harshly repressed.
Rafsanjani was re-elected in 1993, though his victory was not as overwhelming as in 1989. Voter turnout was significantly lower, and he won only two-thirds of the votes in 1993 as compared with more than nine-tenths four years earlier. Barred by the constitution from serving a third consecutive term in office, Rafsanjani nevertheless remained active in political life, serving several terms as head of the Committee to Determine the Expediency of the Islamic Order, a body created to mediate disputes between the Majles and the Council of Guardians (itself empowered to vet legislation and oversee elections).
In the elections to the Majles in 2000, Rafsanjani initially fared poorly—he finished 30th in Tehran, capturing that city’s final seat. However, the Council of Guardians contended that the election had been marred by fraud, and they ordered a recount; after numerous votes had been discounted and the candidates shuffled, Rafsanjani’s position improved to 20th. This new outcome was criticized by many to be the result of manipulation, and Rafsanjani resigned his seat.
Following Mohammad Khatami's two-term presidency (1997–2005), Rafsanjani again sought the presidency in 2005. Although largely considered the favorite, Rafsanjani failed to secure a majority by a significant margin and was defeated by the mayor of Tehrān, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was backed by the country’s conservative establishment.
In 2007, Rafsanjani was elected to lead the Assembly of Experts (Majles-e Khobregān), a body empowered to select Iran’s supreme leader. Rafsanjani assumed his position at the head of this assembly while continuing to lead the Committee to Determine the Expediency of the Islamic Order.
In the presidential election of 2009 Rafsanjani was a vocal critic of the incumbent, President Ahmadinejad, and made clear his support of Mir Hossein Mousavi, a former prime minister (1981–89) and the leading reformist candidate. When Ahmadinejad was declared the victor by a large margin in spite of Mousavi’s apparent popularity and a record turnout that many thought would favor the reformist contingent questions of voting irregularities were raised by the opposition. Amid the cycle of protests that followed the election, several of Rafsanjani’s relatives, including his daughter, were briefly detained. Rafsanjani himself was conspicuously absent from the public sphere and noticeably silent in the days that followed the election—a silence some observers suggested belied his activity behind the scenes, although the details of his whereabouts and the precise nature of his efforts remained subject to speculation.
In 2011, Rafsanjani did not run for another term as leader of the Assembly of Experts after Ahmadinejad supporters waged a campaign to unseat him, alleging that he was too close to the opposition. He was succeeded by Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani—a traditional conservative supported by the pro-Ahmadinejad camp—who won election in March.
In May 2013 Rafsanjani registered to be a candidate in Iran’s upcoming presidential election, attracting the support of prominent reformers, including Mohammad Khatami. His candidacy ended abruptly later that month when he was disqualified from running by the Council of the Guardians. Rafsanjani protested his disqualification in the media but did not appeal.
Iran
Order of Fath (1st grade)[3]
pronunciation (help·info)) or Hashemi Bahramani (هاشمی بهرمانی, 25 August 1934 – 8 January 2017) was an influential Iranian politician and writer, who was the fourth president of Iran from 3 August 1989 until 3 August 1997. He was the head of the Assembly of Experts from 2007 until 2011 when he decided not to nominate himself for the post.[4][5] He was also the chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council.
During the Iran–Iraq War Rafsanjani was the de facto commander-in-chief of the Iranian military. Rafsanjani was elected chairman of the Iranian parliament in 1980 and served until 1989. He played an important role in the choice of Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader.[6]
Rafsanjani became president of Iran after winning 1989 election. He served another term by winning election in 1993. In 2005 election he ran for a third term in office, placing first in the first round of elections but ultimately losing to rival Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the run-off. He and his family came under fire from conservatives for their support of Mir-Hossein Mousavi who led protests in 2009.
Rafsanjani has been described as having been a pragmatic Islamic conservative. The Economist called him a "veteran kingmaker."[7] He supported a free market position domestically, favoring privatization of state-owned industries and a moderate position internationally, seeking to avoid conflict with the United States and the West.[8] He was also founder and one of the Board of Trustees of Azad University.
On 11 May 2013, Rafsanjani entered the race for the June 2013 presidential election,[9] but on 21 May he was disqualified by the Guardian Council. With Hassan Rouhani's election, in which Rafsanjani openly supported him, the Rafsanjani family gradually recovered their political reputation.
Rafsanjani died following a heart attack on 8 January 2017 in a hospital in Tehran at the age of 82.[10][11][12]
Order of Fath (1st grade)[3]
1,891,264
1,573,587
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