Former president of Iran wielded broad authority
TEHRAN — Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a wily political survivor and multimillionaire mogul who remained among the ruling elite despite moderate views, died Sunday, state TV reported. He was 82.
President Rafsanjani was taken to a hospital north of Tehran because of a heart condition before state television broke into programming to announce his death.
His mix of sly wit and reputation for cunning moves — both in politics and business — earned him a host of nicknames such as Akbar Shah, or Great King, during a life that touched every major event in Iranian affairs since before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
He was a steady leader in the turbulent years following the overthrow of the U.S.-backed shah, a veteran warrior in the country’s internal political battles and a covert go-between in intrigue such as the Iran-Contra arms deals in the 1980s.
He also was handed an unexpected political resurgence in his later years. The surprise presidential election in 2013 of his political ally, Hassan Rouhani, gave the former president an insider role in reform-minded efforts that included Rouhani’s push for direct nuclear talks with Washington. World powers and Iran ultimately struck a deal to limit the country’s nuclear enrichment in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions.
While President Rafsanjani was blocked from the 2013 ballot by Iran’s election overseers — presumably worried about boosting his already wide-ranging influence — the former leader embraced Rouhani’s success.
“Now I can easily die since people are able to decide their fate by themselves,” he reportedly said in March.
He was a close aide of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and served as president from 1989 to 1997 during a period of significant changes in Iran. At the time, the country was struggling to rebuild its economy after a devastating 1980-88 war with Iraq.
President Rafsanjani, who was born in 1934 in the village of Bahraman in southeastern Iran’s pistachio-growing region of Rafsanjan, is survived by his wife, Effat Marashi, and five children.