Mohsen Rezaee

Mohsen Rezaee (, born Sabzevar Rezaee Mirgha'ed on 1 September 1954) is an Iranian conservative politician affiliated with the Resistance Front of Islamic Iran and senior military officer in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, who is currently a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, secretary of the Supreme Council for Economic Coordination of Iran, as well as the secretary of the Iranian government's Economic Committee.

Rezaee was born in Masjed Soleyman on 9 September 1954 to a religious Bakhtiyari nomadic family.

He spent his childhood and adolescence in the oil-rich city of Masjed Soleyman (Irsoleymān) in southwestern Iran.

Along with his close friends, he established the "Religion and Science Association".

When he was to begin studying at a school run by National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in 1969, Rezaee moved to the city of Ahvaz.

At high school, he started his political and cultural struggle against the Shah's regime.

In their last year of high school, he was arrested by the Shah Security service SAVAK in Ahvaz and interrogated.

He was 17 when he served five months in solitary confinement.

He did not stop his political activities after he was released from prison.

Rezaee arrived in Tehran in 1974 to study mechanical engineering at Iran University of Science and Technology.

He studied and worked at the same time.

SAVAK intensified its crackdown on guerrilla groups to which he was a member.

He had to abandon the university.

He launched provincial branches of Mansouroun guerrilla fighters in seven provinces.

When Ruhollah Khomeini returned home from exile, the Mansouroun group was tasked with protecting the revolutionary leader.

After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, seven armed Muslim groups teamed up and established the Islamic Revolution Mujahideen Organization to safeguard the nascent Islamic Revolution.

Although he studied mechanical engineering at Iran University of Science and Technology before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Rezaee switched to economics after the Iran–Iraq War, studying at Tehran University and received his PhD in 2001.

Rezaee joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and later was appointed chief of its intelligence division.

From 1980 to 1997, Rezaee was commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Before the Iranian Revolution, Rezaee was a member of the Islamist guerilla rebel group Mansouroun and joined the Mojahedin of the Islamic Revolution Organization following the revolution.

He was appointed as the IRGC commander by Ruhollah Khomeini, and after it grew in organizational complexity he assumed the office of IRGC's commander-in-chief on 11 September 1981, when he was 27 years old, and remained in the post until he announced his retirement from all of his military posts.

He actively participated in the Iran–Iraq War.

In 1986, he was named member of the Supreme Defense Council.

He was secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council from 1997 to 2021 and Vice President of Iran for Economic Affairs between 2021 and 2023.

Rezaee was removed from the IRGC in 1997 due to pressures from the followers of the then president Mohammad Khatami.

Another reason for his dismissal was his failure to respond to the perceived threat of attack from the US.

He was replaced by Yahya Rahim Safavi.

He became a member of Expediency Discernment Council and then its secretary in August 1997.

He was also appointed chair of the commission for macroeconomics and commerce.

In addition, he is a reviewer of Iran's 2025 version development.

Rezaee founded the news website Tabnak, originally Baztab, in 2002 as a reaction to the proliferation of reformist websites.

He also co-founded Imam Hossein University and teaches there.

Rezaee was a candidate of the presidential election of 2005, but withdrew on 15 June 2005, only two days before the election.

Rezaee mentioned withdrawing from the race for "the integration of the nation's votes" and "their effectiveness".

He did not endorse any candidate.

Dubbed a "perennial candidate", Rezaee ran as a conservative presidential candidate in the 2009 elections, coming third with 1.7 percent of the vote, behind winner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and reformist runner-up Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

He was also a candidate in 2013 presidential election and received 3,884,412 votes.

He ranked fourth behind winner Hassan Rouhani, runner-up Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and Saeed Jalili.

In the 2021 election, Rezaee was the runner-up to the winner Ebrahim Raisi, who came victorious from the first round, garnering 3.4 million votes, slightly lower than his 2013 tally.

It is reported that he returned to IRGC in 2015.