This is a main topic of Vatan-e Emrooz Daily Newspaper, issue 156, Wednesday 13 Khordad 1388 (June 3rd 2009).

Vatan Emrooz

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (Persian: اعلی کبر هاشمی رفسنجانی Ali Akbar Hāshemī Rafsanjānī, Hashemi Bahramani (هاشمی بهرمانی; born February 15, 1934) is an influential Iranian politician, writer and former president. Currently he holds the position of Chairman of the Assembly of Experts (a deliberative body of Mujtahids that is charged with electing the Supreme Leader of Iran) and Chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council of Iran (an unelected administrative assembly that resolves legislative conflicts between the Majlis and the Council of Guardians).

He served as President of Iran from 1989 to 1997. In 2005 he ran for a third term in office, winning the first round of elections but ultimately losing to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the run-off round of the 2005 election.

Rafsanjani is reportedly associated with the Iranian business class and is hostile to Ahmandinejad and the more ideological tendency in the Islamic Republic. He has been described as a pragmatic and conservative, who supports a centrist position domestically and a moderate position internationally, seeking to avoid conflict with the United States.

He was born in the village of Bahraman near the city of Rafsanjan in Kerman Province to a poor family of pistachio farmers. He has eight other siblings.

From his marriage to Effat Mar'ashi in 1958, Rafsanjani has three sons: Mohsen, Mehdi, and Yasser, as well as two daughters, Fatemeh and Faezeh. Only Faezeh Hashemi chose a political life, which led to her becoming a Majlis representative and then the publisher of the newspaper Zan.

Many believe Rafsanjani to be the richest man in Iran due to his deep involvement in various Iranian industries, including the oil industry, as well as his ownership of many properties throughout the country. There have also been allegations that some of his wealth has come from arms deals made after the Revolution. His wealth has earned him the nickname of Akbar Shah in Iran.

The American business magazine Forbes has included Rafsanjani in their list of richest people in the world. Forbes has also described Rafsanjani as the real power behind the Iranian government, and asserted that he "has more or less run the Islamic Republic for the past 24 years."

His son Mehdi became head of the state-owned company Gaz Iran.

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani


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