From the Revolutionary Guard to the negotiating table… Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf takes center stage in Iran

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The name of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, has strongly dominated the headlines after the announcement that he would serve as the mediator in negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump.

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On Monday, Trump said that the United States was not negotiating with Iran’s Supreme Leader, but rather with a “senior official” whom he described as “widely respected.”

Later, the American website Politico revealed that the Trump administration views the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, as a potential partner, and even as a possible future leader of his country.

One administration official said: “It is a strongly considered option,” noting that no decisions have been made yet.

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Who is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf?

The Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, was born in the town of Torqabeh in northeastern Iran in 1961. He was a teenager and young adult when Khomeini came to power in 1979.

Ghalibaf joined the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps during the Iran-Iraq War that broke out in the early 1980s. At the age of 22, he took command of one of the units in Khorasan Province.

After the war ended in 1994, Ghalibaf was appointed commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya military base, where he was responsible for construction and logistics projects.

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In 1997, Ghalibaf was appointed commander of the air force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Following the escalation of student protests in Tehran in 1999, Ghalibaf’s name appeared among the signatories of a secret letter from a group of Revolutionary Guard commanders to the then-president Mohammad Khatami, warning that their patience had run out and that they would take action if the government failed to control the unrest, according to what was reported by the Iranian newspaper Kayhan.

After that, the late Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei appointed Ghalibaf as commander of the police forces. In that role, he led a process to modernize police equipment and reorganize it in Tehran and other cities, and Ghalibaf played a prominent role in controlling the student protests.

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Ghalibaf ran for the presidency for the first time in 2005 but lost to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He was then elected mayor of Tehran, and his tenure witnessed rising tensions between the government and the municipality over several major development projects.

During Ahmadinejad’s second presidential term, disagreements between the Tehran municipality and the government intensified, and media outlets close to Ghalibaf became among the government’s strongest critics.

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Ghalibaf ran in the presidential elections in 2013 and 2024 and lost both times. He withdrew from the 2017 race in order to avoid splitting the votes of the hardline conservative camp.

In May 2020, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was elected Speaker of the Iranian Parliament after receiving 230 votes, succeeding Ali Larijani.

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