Profile: Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Parliament Speaker

By Press TV Website Staff

Iran’s Constitutional Council, a 12-member election supervisory body, on Saturday approved six candidates eligible to run in Iran’s upcoming presidential election.

Among those approved is Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former Iranian parliament speaker and one of the country’s leading political figures.

Qalibaf, re-elected as parliament speaker a few weeks ago, filed his candidacy for the highest executive office of the Islamic Republic of Iran on June 3.

His nomination was submitted on the 35th anniversary of the passing of the Islamic Revolution's founder-leader, Imam Khomeini, which was the last day for registration.

Addressing the media after registering his candidature, Qalibaf said he decided to run to continue the unfinished work of the previous government led by Ebrahim Raeisi.

He pledged to “strive to solve problems” facing the people and expressed confidence that issues related to people’s livelihoods are solvable.

Qalibaf’s journey from being a student in northwestern Razavi Khorasan province to becoming one of the most prominent and respected political figures in the country has been awe-inspiring. 

He was born in Torqabeh near Mashhad in 1961 into a modest merchant family, which is why he worked during his youth while pursuing his primary and secondary education.

As a teenager, at the dawn of the Islamic Revolution, he attended lectures at the Karamat, Imam Hassan Mojtaba, and Musa al-Reza mosques in Mashhad, which went a long way in shaping his political and intellectual orientation.

Together with his school classmates, he founded the Islamic Students' Association, which eventually became a national organization.

Following the outbreak of imposed war on Iran in the early 1980s, 18-year-old Qalibaf joined the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) and became active in the field.

He was appointed commander of the Imam Reza Brigade in 1982 and the 5th Nasr Khorasan Division a year later. During the war, he met General Qassem Soleimani, and the two shared a close bond defined by their commitment to the revolution.

In 1982, Qalibaf married Zahra Sadat Moshir, a sociologist and lecturer at Islamic Azad University. They have three children: Elias, Eshaq, and Maryam.

After the West-backed war against Iran, he commanded the IRGC's 25th Karbala Division, which distinguished itself under his leadership in 1990 by repairing transport routes damaged by the Manjil–Rudbar earthquake.

Qalibaf resumed his higher education in 1990 at Islamic Azad University, earning a bachelor's degree in political geography in 1994.

In 1994, he was appointed head of the Khatam-al Anbiya Construction Headquarters, overseeing the construction of the Mashhad-Sarakhs railway, gas supply to five central and western provinces, the port in the Persian Gulf, and the Karkheh Dam.

He continued his studies, obtaining a master's degree in 1996 and defending his PhD thesis titled "Review of the Evolution of Local Institutions in Iran in the Contemporary Period" at Tarbiat Modares University in 2001.

Qalibaf later worked as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Geography at the University of Tehran and also lectured at Tarbiat Modares University.

In 1997, he was appointed commander of the IRGC Air Force and later obtained a license to fly Airbus aircraft by completing intensive pilot courses in Iran and France. 

In 2000, he was appointed chief of the Iranian police, focusing on modernizing equipment and strengthening public trust in law enforcement.

In 2005, Qalibaf resigned from his military and police positions to engage in politics, finishing fourth in the presidential election that year. 

He was elected Mayor of Tehran in 2005, a position he held for twelve years, during which his administrative skills were widely praised.

Qalibaf ran for president twice more, in 2013 and 2017, finishing second in 2013 and withdrawing in favor of Ebrahim Raeisi in 2017.

In 2017, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei appointed him to the Expediency Council. Since 2020, he has also served as the speaker of parliament.

Qalibaf announced his candidacy for the latest presidential election on June 3, stating that the people called on him to join the race and that experience and skill are key to overcoming challenges.

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