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Iran elections candidates: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad |
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Tuesday, 14 June 2005 |
Iran Focus
Age: 49
Position: The appointed Mayor of Tehran
Career Highlights:
 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the appointed Mayor of Tehran, after first getting the job in April 2003.
He is seen to be an ultra-conservative, having also been a top commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, the regime’s ideological army.
Following the 1979 Islamic revolution he became a member of the Office for Strengthening Unity. He belonged to the ultra-conservative faction of the OSU. According to other OSU officials, when the idea of storming the U.S. embassy in Tehran was raised in the OSU central committee by Mahmoud Mirdamadi and Abbas Abdi, who later became leading figures in President Mohammad Khatami’s faction, Ahmadinejad suggested storming the Soviet embassy at the same time.
Ahmadinejad’s activities in the Revolutionary Guards were directly related to suppression of dissidents in Iran and terrorist attacks abroad. A recently revealed document has shown his involvement in planning an attempt on the life of the Indian-born British author Salman Rushdie.
He served as governor-general of Ardebil Province (northwest Iran) during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War.
He is presently a member of the right-wing Association of Engineers and a member of the central council of the Society of the Devotees of the Islamic Revolution
As mayor of Tehran, he moved to restrict activities in cultural centres in the capital, turning them into religious centres.
In his own Words:
"We did not have a revolution in order to have democracy".
(United International Press, May 24, 2005)
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