Iran elections candidates: Mehdi Karroubi

Iran Focus: Hojatoleslam Mehdi Mahdavi-Karroubi, a mid-ranking cleric, is currently a member of the State Expediency Council and an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Karroubi was Majlis (parliament) Speaker from 1989 to 1992. He took up the same post again from 2000 to 2004 replacing a leading conservative, Ali Akbar Nateq Nuri, who was instead appointed an adviser to Khamenei. Iran Focus

Age: 68 (Born in 1937)

Position: Member of the Expediency Council, former Speaker of Majlis

Career Highlights:

Hojatoleslam Mehdi Mahdavi-Karroubi, a mid-ranking cleric, is currently a member of the State Expediency Council and an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Karroubi was Majlis (parliament) Speaker from 1989 to 1992. He took up the same post again from 2000 to 2004 replacing a leading conservative, Ali Akbar Nateq Nuri, who was instead appointed an adviser to Khamenei.

For years, Karroubi headed the Imam Khomeini Relief Committee and the Martyrs Foundation, two state institutions which control much of the country’s assets.

He has been a close ally of incumbent President Mohammad Khatami and was a founding member of the Association of Militant Clerics, which grouped together Shiite clerics in the government opposed to the more traditional faction, the Association of Militant Clergy. The latter, led by Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani, is closely allied to powerful merchants of the Bazaar.

Karroubi suffered an embarrassing defeat in February 2004, when he lost his seat despite being one of the few reformist candidates who were allowed to take part.