Hojjat ol-Eslam Mehdi Karroubi (مهدی کروبی ; born 1937 in Aligoudarz in Lorestan) is an Iranian politician and cleric, the resigned chairman and founding member of the Association of Combatant Clerics party. He was the Speaker of the Iranian parliament from 2000 to 2004, and from 1989 to 1992, and a presidential candidate in the 2005 presidential election.
Karroubi was also a candidate in the 2004 parliamentary elections in Tehran, but after he ranked thirty-first in the first round, where thirty representatives were chosen, he withdrew from the second round.
Karroubi is a critic of the Guardian Council but at the same time supports the Supreme Leader, and calls himself a follower of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He was an Advisor to the Supreme Leader and a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, by appointment of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, until he resigned from all his political posts on June 19, 2005 after the first round of the 2005 presidential election (see below).
Karroubi considers himself a pragmatic reformist and is an ethnic Lur. As of late 2008 he was the head of the Etemad-e-Melli party (National Trust or National Confidence party).[1] He has been described as a “moderate” with a “mostly rural” base of support, and mentioned as a possible candidate in the 2009 presidential election.[