Abolhassan Banisadr Wiki – Abolhassan Banisadr Biography
Abolhassan Banisadr was Iran’s first president after the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution who fled Tehran after being impeached for challenging the growing power of clerics as the nation became a theocracy; he died Saturday.
Among a sea of black-robed Shiite clerics, Banisadr stood out for his Western-style suits and background so French that it was in philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre that he confided his belief he’d be Iran’s first president some 15 years before it happened.
Those differences only isolated him as the nationalist sought to instill a socialist-style economy in Iran underpinned by his deep Shi’ite faith instilled by his cleric father.
Age
He was 88 years old.
Iran’s First President Dies
Banisadr, Iran’s first president after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, died aged 88, local media reported.
According to a statement released by his family, he died in a hospital in Paris due to a prolonged illness.
Career
Before the presidency, Banisadr was a foreign minister in the interim government formed shortly after the monarchy was abolished in Iran.
Banisadr did not stay in office for long. In 1981 he was impeached, allegedly due to his liberal policies and opposition to Islamic clerics.
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Banisadr would never consolidate his grip on the government he supposedly led as events far beyond his control, such as the US embassy hostage crisis and the invasion of Iran by Iraq, only added to the tumult that followed the revolution.
True power remained firmly wielded by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whom Banisadr worked in exile in France and followed to Tehran amid the revolution.
But Khomeini would toss Banisadr aside after only 16 months in office, sending him fleeing back to Paris, where he would remain for decades.
“I was like a child watching my father slowly turn into an alcoholic,” Banisadr later said of Khomeini. “The drug this time was power.”
