2009 Iranian presidential election
Presidential elections were held in Iran on 12 June 2009, with incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad running against three challengers. The next morning the Islamic Republic News Agency, Iran's news agency, announced that with two-thirds of the votes counted, Ahmadinejad had won the election with 62% of the votes cast, and that Mir-Hossein Mousavi had received 34% of the votes cast. There were large irregularities in the results and people were surprised by them, which resulted in protests of millions of Iranians, across every Iranian city and around the world and the emergence of the opposition Iranian Green Movement.
Image: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Cropped
Image: Mir Hossein Mousavi in Zanjan by Mardetanha
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Mir-Hossein Mousavi
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is an Iranian principlist and nationalist politician who served as the sixth president of Iran from 2005 to 2013. He is currently a member of the Expediency Discernment Council. He was known for his hardline views and nuclearisation of Iran. He was also the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country, and served as mayor of Tehran from 2003 to 2005, reversing many of his predecessor's reforms.
Ahmadinejad in 2019
Ahmadinejad at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012
Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia University, September 2007
Participants of the second Caspian Summit in October 2007. From left to right: President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev, President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbaev, President of Russia Vladimir Putin and President of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.