Word: akbar
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...unassuming Ahmadinejad, 48, defeated the wily political veteran Ayatullah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 70, who ran on a pragmatic platform that promised accommodation with the West. But Rafsanjani could not consolidate support from the country's liberal and progressive voters who were wary of his family's largely unexplained wealth and unhappy about the corruption that grew under his watch as President from 1989 to 1997. So while Iran's economically disadvantaged classes, Islamic militias and web of religious social-action groups provided Ahmadinejad with 62% of the votes, Rafsanjani could muster only 36% in a country almost evenly split...
...field of seven candidates, Ahmadinejad won about 19% of the popular vote, nowhere near the more than 50% needed to become President outright. But the favorite, the pragmatic Ayatullah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 70, won only 21%, hence this Friday's runoff vote between the two. The reformers on last week's ballot, supporters of the policies of outgoing President Mohammed Khatami, were badly trounced and now see in Ahmadinejad's smiling face a stealth campaign by Iran's conservative ruling ayatullahs to take the presidency, denying it even to Rafsanjani, who has his fair share of hard-line credentials...
...irrational belief does not bode well for a democracy that depends on the informed intelligence of the citizenry for sound government and an efficient economy. Lawrence Cranberg Austin, Texas, U.S. Eyes on Iran Joe Klein's column " Iran's Pragmatic Face" [May 30] referred to former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as "a dealmaking pragmatist [who] may push to repair ties with the U.S. " Viewing Rafsanjani as pragmatic is dangerous, since that is an example of seeing the political landscape of totalitarian countries through the U.S.'s democratic eyes. Rafsanjani is pragmatic in comparison with Iran's Supreme Leader...
...intellectuals and writers who remain politically active, some have joined the Establishment, which at least offers better computers and shinier offices than the independent media start-ups that the judiciary routinely shutters. Some are even working for Shargh, a newspaper widely believed to be controlled by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is favored to win next week's presidential election. Kambiz Tavana, a voluble reporter in his early 30s, joined me at Cafe Mint in midtown Tehran to make the case for his journey to the Rafsanjani camp. He described the reform era as "a flailing moment...
...spent nearly a decade out of the spotlight, Ayatullah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani still knows how to make an entrance. Arriving for an interview with TIME inside a domed marble Tehran palace, Rafsanjani, 70, strides in with the bounce of a man half his age. He's even accompanied by his film crew. It's all part of a slick campaign aimed at selling one of the Islamic republic's old founding fathers as a hip reformer in tune with restless young Iranians, in hopes of returning the former President to the job he left in 1997. As he settles...