Mohammad Reza Aref

Mohammad Reza Aref (, born 19 December 1951) is an Iranian engineer, academic and reformist politician who was the parliamentary leader of reformists' Hope fraction in the Iranian Parliament, representing Tehran, Rey, Shemiranat and Eslamshahr.

Aref was born on 19 December 1951 in Yazd.

His father, Mirza Ahmad Aref, was a famous businessman.

He received a bachelor's degree in electronics engineering from the University of Tehran, and a master's degree and a PhD in electrical and communication engineering from Stanford University in 1975, 1976 and 1980, respectively.

His PhD thesis was on the information theory of networks, supervised by Thomas M. Cover.

He introduced and analyzed deterministic relay networks which is later termed as Aref Networks.

During his education at Tehran University, he led many protests and was arrested by SAVAK prior to the Iranian Revolution.

During his political career, Aref has held important positions in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Following the Islamic Revolution, he began his political career.

His first major political post was in 1981 when he became vice president of communication company.

He later became acting president of the company in 1983 and became deputy minister of science on the following year.

Aref was a faculty member of Isfahan University of Technology until 1994.

Aref, who was a professor at University of Tehran, was elected as its chancellor in 1994.

He began his career with creating Faculty of Social Sciences and also Institute of Geophysics.

After his appointment as minister of technology, Aref was resigned as chancellor of the Tehran University in 1997.

After Mohammad Khatami was elected as President of Iran, he nominated Aref as the minister of post, telegraph, and telephone that was later renamed to minister of communications and information technology.

He became the first head of management and planning organization in 2000 after resigned as Minister of Communication.

He was the second first vice president from 2001 to 2005 under Mohammad Khatami.

He previously served as Minister Information and Communications Technology and head of Management and Planning Organization in Khatami's first cabinet.

He was a member of Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution until the year of 2021, and the current member of Expediency Discernment Council.

He is also an electrical engineer and a professor at University of Tehran and Sharif University of Technology.

Khatami was reelected in 2001 and his former vice president Hassan Habibi resigned immediately after the election.

After Habibi's resignation, he appointed Aref as his First Vice President.

He served in this post until September 2005 and was succeeded by Parviz Dawoodi after the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Then, he served as a professor in the department of electrical engineering at Sharif University of Technology, offering courses on cryptography, coding theory, estimation theory and Information Theory.

He is currently one of the members of the Expediency Discernment Council that is an advisory unit for Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

He was nominated for parliamentary election of 2008 as the reformist front's first in the list but he withdrew to protest the rejection of some candidates by the Guardian Council.

He was a candidate in the 2013 presidential election but withdrew his candidacy in order to give the reformist camp a better chance to win.

In June 2013, Aref announced that he together with other reformist figures was planning to launch a national party, namely Hope of Iran.

On the other hand, Iran's president-elect Hassan Rouhani stated that Aref will be one of his cabinet members.

However, Aref rejected Rouhani's invite for a political post (Vice Presidency or Ministry of Science) to focus on his party's establishment.

He also announced his interest in becoming one of Rouhani's advisers in politics and human rights.

Aref was one of the potential candidates for the presidential elections held in June 2013.

He said that he would not stand if Khatami run but after Khatami declined, Aref announced that he would run in the election.

He registered on 11 May 2013 and was confirmed by the Guardian Council.

His major goals were lowering the unemployment rate and resolving high inflation.

He pledged an extra 1 million jobs annually, which would include 200 thousand jobs from tourism development.

He also added that if elected, his administration would bolster Iran's international relations and would find a "political solution" to closing the "[nuclear] dossier once and for all".

Aref has also been heading the Reformists' Supreme Council for Policymaking since its establishment in 2015.

He is currently member of the Expediency Discernment Council.