Tehran city council elects new mayor

01 March 2002

A colleague and friend of Tehran's former mayor, Gholamhossein Karbaschi, on 25 February was elected as the new mayor of Tehran by the reformist city council.

The appointment of Mohammad Hassan Malak-Madani still needs the approval of the Interior Ministry. Malak-Madani succeeds reformist Morteza Alviri, who resigned on 13 February following differences with the city council and a campaign by council members to oust him.

Analysts say that Malak-Madani, who was mayor of the city of Isfahan when Karbaschi was governor of Isfahan province in the 1980s, is likely to pursue a similar line to that followed by Karbaschi when he was mayor. Considered to be a reform-oriented technocrat, Karbaschi played a key role in improving Tehran's infrastructure and changing the capital's face during his term.

In 1999, Karbaschi was convicted of corruption and jailed, a move that was widely considered an attack by conservative hardliners on the moderate faction supporting President Khatami. Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei pardoned Karbaschi in late 1999.

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