Iran’s upcoming election

by Gareth Smith September 1, 2007

written by Gareth Smith September 1, 2007

The campaign for Iran’s next parliamentary campaign will not start officially until a couple of weeks before the poll in March 2008, but rising political temperatures in Tehran suggest the battle has already begun. Conservative websites have been running a video allegedly showing former president Mohammad Khatami, still a leading reformist, shaking hands with women. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, under criticism over his economic management, has removed two important ministers to give fresh direction to his government. And the judiciary has once again banned Shargh, the lively reformist daily newspaper that regularly lampooned the president and his allies. The attacks on Mr. Khatami show Iran’s conservatives are firmly on the defensive, says Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a vice-president when Khatami led Iran through an eight-year reformist era between 1997 and 2005. “They have realized there is a chance he could run again in the 2009 presidential elections,” says Abtahi, who backs the

Gareth Smith

Gareth Smith was a distinguished journalist who reported from the Middle East for over two decades. He served as the Financial Times correspondent in Tehran, where he was the chief Iran correspondent from 2003, following his earlier role as Lebanon correspondent. Throughout his career, Smith covered Middle Eastern affairs for leading media outlets, including The Financial Times, The Guardian, and the BBC. He also contributed as an editor to Executive magazine. His work as a freelance journalist in the 1990s, focusing on the politics of Iran and Iraq, paved the way for his appointment at the FT. In 2009, he relocated to the west coast of Ireland, where he balanced freelance journalism with his passion for nature and the land.

Iran’s upcoming election

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