Abolhasan Banisadr

Abolhasan (born March 22, 1933) is an Iranian politician. He was the first President of Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution abolished the monarchy, serving from January 25, 1980, until he was impeached by parliament after sixteen months. Before his presidency, he was the minister of foreign affairs in the provisional government.

Banisadr was born on March 22, 1933, in Hamadan. He spent his elementary and secondary education in Hamadan and Tehran. At the same time as the nationalization of Iran’s oil industry, he joined the militant youth. Banisadr studied at the Faculty of Theology and also Economics at the Faculty of Law at Tehran University and graduated in 1959.

Banisadr participated in the anti-Shah student movement and was imprisoned twice, and was wounded during the uprising in 1963. He was barred from leaving the country by SAVAK for political reasons. Eventually, He was allowed to go to France to pursue a degree in sociology but failed to obtain a doctorate. He also studied finance and economics at the Sorbonne. Banisadr later joined the Iranian resistance group led by Ayatollah Khomeini, becoming one of his hard-liner advisors.

During his sixteen-year stay in France, Banisadr initially worked with the National Front but later withdrew from political and party affiliations abroad and began research on historical and economic affairs in Iran.

In 1972, Banisadr’s father died and he attended the funeral in Iraq where he first met Ayatollah Khomeini. His father was an ayatollah and close to Ayatollah Khomeini. Banisadr returned to Iran together with Ayatollah Khomeini as the revolution was beginning.

On February 1, 1979, Banisadr came to Tehran with Ayatollah Khomeini from Paris and immediately began his lectures at universities and public assemblies. The domestic media referred to him as a prominent theorist, economist, and advisor to Ayatollah Khomeini.

Following the Iranian Revolution, Banisadr became deputy minister of finance for a short time. He also became a member of the Revolutionary Council when Bazargan and others left the council to form the provisional government. After the resignation of the provisional finance minister on February 27, 1979, he was appointed finance minister by Prime Minister Bazargan. On November 12, 1979, Banisadr was appointed as foreign minister to replace Ebrahim Yazdi in the government that was led by the Revolutionary Council when the provisional government resigned.

After the formation of the provisional government, he refused to accept any executive responsibility, restricting himself to membership in the Revolutionary Council. Therefore, he had the opportunity to have a close observation on and criticize the functioning of the executives, far from popular demands, and to be a critic of the revolutionary new government.

 

Calling himself a revolutionary theorist, Banisadr also believed that if he was voted, he would volunteer for action and administration. He then was elected to a four-year term as president on January 25, 1980, receiving 78.9 percent of the vote in the election, and was inaugurated on February 4, 1980. Ayatollah Khomeini remained the Supreme Leader of Iran with the constitutional authority to dismiss the president. The inaugural ceremonies were held at the hospital where Ayatollah Khomeini was recovering from a heart ailment.

 

Banisadr thought that his vote of more than ten million Iranians had always made him privileged above other political and social organizations in the country. But he failed to get his candidates from different cities in the country to the parliament, because of the lack of cooperation with the various parties, especially the Islamic Republic Party. As a result, a small minority of his supporters went to the first parliament.

 

After that, choosing a prime minister became a hot topic. The Islamic Republic Party, which had a majority in the parliament, had nominated three people for the position. The election of the prime minister took a little longer due to the disagreement among the representatives, and at last, Rajaei was announced as Prime Minister, contrary to the wishes of Banisadr.

In August 1980, the outbreak of an imposed war reduced the political conflict within the country for a short time. Banisadr, though uninformed of military affairs, deprived the country of the opportunity to urgently defend itself against the invading Iraqi army by presenting the advice “land surrender and taking time” until Iran saw the loss of Khorramshahr and some border towns in the west and south.

 

In times of crisis, Banisadr once again fueled internal strife and neglected Ayatollah Khomeini’s advice on setting aside internal disputes.

 

Banisadr is not a cleric; Ayatollah Khomeini had insisted that clerics should not run for positions in the government. From the first days of the Iran-Iraq War, Banisadr was appointed acting Commander-in-Chief by Ayatollah Khomeini on June 10, 1981.

The parliament impeached Banisadr in his absence on June 20, 1981, allegedly because of his moves against the clerics in power, in particular, Sayyed Mohammad Beheshti, then head of the judicial system. Ayatollah Khomeini himself appears to have instigated the impeachment, which he signed the next day. Banisadr believed the clerics should not directly govern Iran and was perceived as supporting the People’s Mojahedin of Iran.

At the same time, the Iranian government outlawed all political parties, except the Islamic Republican Party. Government forces arrested and imprisoned members of other parties, such as the People’s Mojahedin, Fada’iyan-e Khalq, Tudeh and Peykar.

Banisadr went into hiding for a few days before his removal, and hid in Tehran, protected by the Mojahedin-e Khalq (PMOI). He attempted to organize an alliance of anti-Khomeini factions to retake power, including the PMOI, KDP, and the Fada’iyan Organization (Minority) while eschewing any contact with monarchist exile groups. He met numerous times while in hiding with PMOI leader Masoud Rajavi to plan an alliance, but after the execution of one of PMOI members, Banisadr and Rajavi both concluded that it was unsafe to remain in Iran.

In Banisadr’s view, this impeachment was a coup against democracy in Iran. To settle the political differences in the country, President Banisadr had asked for a referendum.

When Banisadr was impeached on June 20, 1981, he had fled and had been hiding in western Iran. In July 1981, Banisadr and Masoud Rajavi were smuggled aboard an Iranian Air Force Boeing 707 piloted by Colonel Moezzi (the Shah’s pilot). It followed a routine flight plan before deviating out of Iranian ground space to Turkish airspace and eventually landing in Paris. It was rumoured at the time that he had disguised himself as a woman, but this has never been proven, and Banisadr himself has never commented on these allegations.

However, Banisadr soon fell out with Rajavi, accusing him of ideologies favouring dictatorship and violence. Furthermore, Banisadr opposed the armed opposition as initiated and sustained by Rajavi and sought support for Iran during the war with Iraq.

 

Banisadr lives in Versailles, near Paris, in a villa closely guarded by French police. Banisadr’s daughter, Firouzeh, married Masoud Rajavi in Paris following their exile. They later divorced and the alliance between him and Rajavi also ended.

Books written by Banisadr include The Economics of Monotheism (in Persian), Oil and Hegemony (in Persian), Cultural Mission (in Persian), the U.S. and the Revolution, My Turn to Speak: Translation of Le complot des ayatollahs, Le Coran et le pouvoir: principes fondamentaux du Coran.

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