Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf

Personal life

Ghalibaf was born on 23 August 1961 in Torqabeh, near Mashhad, in the province of Razavi Khorasan,

Ghalibaf married Zahra Sadat Moshir in 1982 when he was twenty two years old. Moshir (born 1968) joined her husband as an adviser and head of women's affairs in the Municipality of Tehran.

Education

Ghalibaf obtained bachelor in human geography from Tehran University, master in human geography from Islamic Azad University and PhD in political geography from Tarbiat Modares University.

Military career

At the age of 19, he was one of the commanders of the defense forces during the Iran–Iraq War. Shortly afterwards he was named commander of the Rasulollah division. By the time he was twenty-two, he was already commander of the Nasr Troops. After the war he was selected as Deputy Commander of the Resistance Force and Basij Troops under General Afshar. Ghalibaf received the degree of Major General in 1996 after he had completed a master's degree in geopolitics. In 1998, when Mohsen Rezaee retired and Yahya Rahim Safavi took over as IRGC's new commander-in-chief, he was named Commander of Aerospace Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Ghalibaf became one of the senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in later years. In 1984, he was appointed head of the Khatam-al Anbiya Construction Headquarters, which is the engineering arm of the IRGC. Under his management, the headquarters launched a 165-kilometer railway connecting Mashhad to Sarakhs.

As commander of the Revolutionary Guards Air Force during the 1999 student protests, Ghalibaf was one of the 24 IRGC commanders who sent a threatening letter to the reformist president Mohammad Khatami stating that if the protests were allowed to continue, they would take matters into their own hands.

Police career

Following the 1999 protests, he was appointed chief of the Iranian Police Forces by the Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, to succeed General Hedayat Lotfian who was removed from his office during the violence. After becoming chief of police, Ghalibaf initiated some reforms in the forces, including dropping all lawsuits against newspapers, modernization of police equipment and the Police 110 project, which aimed to make the police more accessible to the general public.

On 5 April 2005, Ghalibaf submitted his resignation from the military positions (including the police forces) due to his intention to run for the presidency of Iran.

Mayor of Tehran

When Ghalibaf lost the 2005 election, he was proposed as Mayor of Tehran along with Mohammad Aliabadi and Mohammad-Ali Najafi. On 4 September 2005, he was elected as the next Mayor by the City Council of Tehran to succeed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who left the office after being elected president. He received 8 out of 15 votes of the council. He was reelected for a second term on 2007 after receiving 12 votes with no opponent.

According to Bloomberg, he has used his position as mayor "to foster a reputation as a politician who gets things done." Ghalibaf sought reelection as Mayor of Tehran as the Conservative's choice in the 2013 local elections. His rivals were Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani, Masoumeh Ebtekar, Ali Nikzad and Mohsen Mehralizadeh. He was elected as Mayor for another term on 8 September 2013 after defeating Hashemi in a runoff with 51.6% of the votes.

Soleimani friendship

Ghalibaf, who commanded the 5th Nasr Division and then the elite 25th Karbala Division of the IRGC in the Iran–Iraq War, developed a long friendship with the then up-and-coming commander of the 41st Tharallah Division, General Qasem Soleimani. In the words of Arash Azizi:

In the 2013 Iranian presidential election Soleimani reportedly voted for Ghalibaf, who represented IRGC veterans' interests, against moderate candidate Hassan Rouhani, who eventually won.

Presidential campaigns

2005 presidential election

Ghalibaf was a candidate in the Iranian presidential election of 2005,

On 13 October 2008, he announced his support for dialogue with the United States as suggested by then-presidential candidate Barack Obama. According to Ghalibaf, "the world community, the Iranian society and the US society would benefit" from such talks.

2013 presidential election

Ghalibaf did not run for presidency in the elections in 2009. His adviser announced that he would take part in the presidential elections in June 2013 and he officially announced this on 16 July 2012. In his speech during the announcement of his candidacy, he said:

He also set Love and Sacrifice and Jihadi Change as his official slogans. His candidacy was approved by the Guardian Council on 21 May 2013 along with seven other candidates. He was one of the opponents of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's candidacy and says it was better that Rafsanjani not enter the race, as he had served two terms before. He and two other candidates, Ali Akbar Velayati and Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, formed a coalition called "2+1". He was endorsed by former candidates, Alireza Ali Ahmadi and Sadeq Vaeez Zadeh. Ali Larijani, the current chairman of parliament, also supported Ghalibaf in the election.

According to the Guardian, his moderating streak as Tehran's mayor is evident throughout Ghalibaf's political efforts. Ghalibaf received 6,077,292 votes (16.55%), putting him in second place behind winner Hassan Rouhani, who was elected as the new president. Hours after the announcement of the results, Ghalibaf published a statement congratulating Hassan Rouhani on his election as President of Iran and conceding.

2017 presidential election

Main article: Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf 2017 presidential campaign

2024 presidential election

Ghalibaf's candidacy for the 2024 Iranian presidential election was approved by the guardian council in June 2024.

Senior IRGC commanders, including Major General Mohsen Rezaee, Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani and Brigadier General Hossein Dehghan supported Ghalibaf's presidential bid.

Electoral history

Main article: Electoral history of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf

Party affiliation

Ghalibaf is regarded as the spiritual leader behind Progress and Justice Population of Islamic Iran and Iranian Islamic Freedom Party. He is a member of the political alliance Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces.

Controversies and scandals

Allegations of corruption

Yas Holding Company case

Ghalibaf has been accused of using his influence as a former IRGC commander to cover up corruption scandals that took place in Tehran during his term as mayor. One such scandal, which took place in 2017, involved the Yas Holding Company, a company whose board is partially made up of IRGC generals. The company was accused of embezzling an estimated 13 trillion tomans (US$3 billion) from Tehran Municipality for overpriced infrastructure projects built by construction companies linked to the IRGC during Ghalibaf's mayorship. In early 2022, a leaked audio recording was published by Radio Farda, which purported to show former IRGC Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari and Brigadier General Sadegh Zolghadr-Nia discussing the Yas Holding Company case, mentioning Ghalibaf's efforts to cover up the scandal by using his connections to the IRGC, by enlisting the support of Hossein Taeb, the head of the IRGC's Intelligence Organization.

"LayetteGate" and luxury apartments in Istanbul

In April 2022, photos were published on Twitter that showed Ghalibaf's wife, Zahra Sadat Moshirand, and members of Ghalibaf's family at Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport, returning from a luxury shopping trip in Turkey with 20 pieces of luggage, which were said to be a layette for their newborn child. The scandal, dubbed LayetteGate or SismuniGate by Iranian Twitter users, led to calls for him to step down as speaker of Parliament, with critics accusing Ghalibaf of being out of touch for his family shopping overseas during an economic crisis, and hypocrisy, pointing to comments made during his 2017 presidential campaign, where he criticized a former minister for traveling to Italy to purchase baby clothes. The criticism of Ghalibaf's family escalated when further allegations were made by an Iranian journalist based in Turkey that Ghalibaf's wife, daughter and son-in-law had purchased two luxury apartments in Istanbul worth 400 billion rials (US$1.6 million).

Another scandal concerned Ghalibaf's son, Eshagh Ghalibaf, who had made "repeated enquiries" to obtain Canadian permanent residency. When this came to light Iranians joined a petition asking the Canadian government not to grant the younger Ghalibaf a visa. There are reports that his son claimed to have $150,000 in funds available to support his application. In February 2024, Canadian Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Marc Miller wrote on X: "On Feb. 6th, the permanent residency application of Eshagh Ghalibaf, the son of Iran’s Speaker of Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was refused. The Iranian regime has engaged in acts of terrorism and systemic human rights violations. We stand with the people of Iran."

All these scandals however, did not stop Ghalibaf running for parliamentary election in 2024 and staying as speaker of the house in Islamic Republic's parliament.

Books

Ghalibaf has authored several books primarily focusing on geopolitics, political geography, and urban governance, including:

• The Logic of Complexity Analysis in Geopolitics: The Governance of Regimes in Geographical Structures (2023, with Majid Gholami).
• A Review of the Concepts of Human Geography (2020, with Mohammad Hadi Pouyandeh).
• Centralization and Decentralization in Iran (2017).
• Iran and the Development-Oriented (2009).
• Local Government (2007).

Accolades

• World Mayor: 8th place (2008)
• Sustainable Transport Award: 2nd place (2011)

References

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