Word: rafsanjani
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...voters participated. His victory in the 2005 presidential election was an even bigger fluke. He ran a low-key campaign, focused on corruption and directing Iran's oil wealth to the poor. After sneaking into second place past six other contenders, he beat former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in the runoff...
...Iran's President since 1981. Though Westerners are concerned by his inflammatory rhetoric toward Israel, it's his domestic policies that have irked Iran's already skeptical political establishment. Early in his tenure, he sacked thousands of bureaucrats and sought to replace them with unqualified cronies. He tossed Rafsanjani and Khatami out of fancy quarters in the presidential compound that they had maintained as former officeholders. He angered members of his own party in the Majlis, or Parliament, by refusing to put their supporters on the public payroll. In response, the Majlis rejected several of Ahmadinejad's Cabinet appointees, including...
...Escalating tensions with the U.S. are sufficiently worrisome that former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani is once again leading a drive to contain Ahmadinejad and his political ambitions. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who heads the executive branch in Iran's system, asked Rafsanjani - who was beaten by Ahmadinejad in the last presidential election - to spearhead a similar effort last year, after Ahmadinejad's remarks about Israel sparked an international outcry. That intervention was late and ineffective, but this time Rafsanjani is moving more quickly and aggressively to defuse tensions with the West. The former president has been meeting with...
...fewer than the 20 million-plus his reformist predecessor Mohammed Khatami received in sweeping to first-round victories in 1997 and 2001. Ahmadinejad went on to win the run-off, but he benefited mainly from the massive protest vote cast against his opponent, former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani...
...precisely the fear that drove Iran to accelerate its longstanding program—the U.S. government should take a wiser, subtler approach. The rash and belligerent President Ahmadinejad has succeeded in alienating many of the more prudent establishment Iranian politicians such as former President and current Expediency Council Chairman Rafsanjani. The U.S. should push for a UN-approved deal involving a degree of diplomatic and commercial rapprochement plus nonaggression guarantees in exchange for Iranian compliance. The firebrand president will likely oppose this offer, yet it is America’s best chance of appealing to and strengthening the hands...