Ahmadinejad Elected President

In June 2005, former Tehran mayor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a hard-line conservative and a devout follower of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, won the presidential election with 62% of the vote. Ahmadinejad was highly popular among Iran's rural poor, who responded to his pledge to fight corruption among the country's elite. In Aug. 2005, he rejected an EU disarmament plan that was backed by the U.S. and had been in negotiation for two years. Ahmadinejad has been defiantly anti-Western and venomously anti-Israeli, announcing that Israel was a “disgraceful blot” that should be “wiped off the map.”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was reelected as president of Iran on June 12, 2009, with over 62% of the vote. Disputes arose over the election's validity, with rival candidates claiming it was rigged. Protests and riots ensued in the streets of Tehran, resulting in at least 17 deaths and hundreds of arrests.