Grand National Alliance (Iran)

Grand National Alliance
Grand National Alliance
Founded	July 1979
Assembly for the Final Review of the Constitution	2 / 73
	Politics of Iran; Political parties; Elections;

The Grand National Alliance (Persian: اتحاد بزرگ ملّی, romanized: etteḥād-e bozorg-e mellī) was a secular electoral alliance contesting in the 1979 Iranian Constitutional Convention election. The candidates listed by this coalition mostly included communists and nationalists.

Parties in coalition

The groups named in the coalition's declaration of existence, were:

Revolutionary Organization (sāzmān-e enqelābī) and its youth wing the Revolutionary Youth Organization (sāzmān-e javānān-e enqelābī), a Maoist group split from the Tudeh Party of Iran which was later merged into the Laborers' Party of Iran
Iranian Women's Society (jamʿiyat-e zanān-e Īrān)
Justice Society (jamʿiyat-e edālat)
Confederation of Iranian Students (konfederāsīūn-e jahānī-e moḥaṣṣelīn wa dānešjūyān-e īrānī)
The Flag of Sattar Khan (səttar xan bayrağı), an Azeri-language publication which later became aligned with the Laborers' Party of Iran
United Campaign for Establishment of the Working Class Party (etteḥād-e mobāraza dar rāh-e ījād-e hezb-e ṭabaqa-ye kārgar), later merged into the Laborers' Party of Iran

Candidates

The candidates endorsed by the coalition for Tehran Province, were:

Constituency	Candidate endorsed	Group	Votes	%	Rank	Result
Tehran	Mahmoud Taleghani	FMI^[a]	2,016,801	79.86	1st	Won
	Abolhassan Banisadr	—	1,763,126	69.82	2dnd	Won
	Habibollah Peyman	MMM^[a]	164,644	6.52	15th	Defeated
	Hassan Nazih	FMI^[a]	44,765	1.77	30th	Defeated
	Lotfollah Meisami	PMM^[a]	11,274	0.45	41st	Defeated
	Parvaneh Forouhar	NPI^[a]	8,110	0.32	43rd	Defeated
	Ali Sadeghi	RO	3,473	0.14	47th	Defeated
	Majid Zarbakhsh	UCEWCP	2,719	0.11	50th	Defeated
	Farideh Garman	WS	2,685	0.11	51st	Defeated
	Hadi Soudbakhsh	JS	990	0.04	66th	Defeated
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e The party itself was not part of this coalition
Source: "Condition of Parties" (PDF), Ettela'at, no. 15919, p. 10, 1 August 1979

Of the ten candidates, only two won the election who were also listed by the Coalition of Islamic Parties. Four belonged to the coalition partners, who were all defeated. They included communists Ali Sadeghi, Majid Zarbakhsh, Farideh Garman and Hadi Soudbakhsh.

Farideh Garman was an architect who had just returned to Iran after settling for 14 years in Italy.^[1]

Majid Zarbakhsh (born 1940 in Abadan, Iran) was a former student leader who had arrived in the West Germany to study and was involved in anti-Shah protests with German students associated with the New Left.^[2] In August 1969, as a secretary of the Confederation of Iranian Students (CISNU) he went to Jordan and participated in the congress of the General Union of Palestinian Students, before visiting Ruhollah Khomeini in Najaf to ensure him that CISNU was both anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist. He also agreed to consider publishing more onn Islamic aspects of opposition to Shah in that meeting.^[3] He was, along with Bahman Nirumand and Mehdi Khanbaba-Tehran, part of the triumvirate of the 'Cadres of the Revolutionary Organization', an organization split from the 'Revolutionary Organization of the Tudeh Party' which was itself an offshoot of the Tudeh Party of Iran.^[4]

The provincial candidates who were supported at least by one of the coalition partners were:

Constituency	Candidate endorsed	Group	Votes	%	Rank	Result
Tehran	Khalil Haghighat	JS	131	0.01	90th	Defeated
Fars	Iraj Kashkouli	RO	5,455	0.89	13th	Defeated
Gilan	Hossein Hosseinkhani-Moghadam	RO	Did not run
Gilan	Masoumeh Zamiri	WS	668	0.19	16th	Defeated
Khuzestan	Ali Saberi	RO	6,402	0.37	14th	Defeated
Isfahan	Asghar Tofangsazi	JS	1,815	0.19	20th	Defeated
Kermanshahan	Khadijeh Soleimani	WS	574	0.25	15th	Defeated
East Azerbaijan	Bagher Mortazavi Khosrowshahi	JS	2,652	0.29	22nd	Defeated

References

^ Ghamari-Tabrizi, Behrooz (2016), Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment, University of Minnesota Press, p. 144, ISBN 9781452950563
^ Davis, Belinda (2010), "A Whole World Opening Up", Changing the World, Changing Oneself: Political Protest and Collective Identities in West Germany and the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, Berghahn Books, pp. 264–265, ISBN 9781845458089
^ Alavi, Seyed Ali (2019), Iran and Palestine: Past, Present, Future, Routledge, p. 19, ISBN 9781000022919
^ Rahnema, Ali (2021), Call to Arms: Iran's Marxist Revolutionaries: Formation and Evolution of the Fada'is, 1964–1976, Oneworld Publications, ISBN 9781786079862

[N-1] The party itself was not part of this coalition

[2] Ghamari-Tabrizi, Behrooz (2016), Foucault in Iran: Islamic Revolution after the Enlightenment, University of Minnesota Press, p. 144, ISBN 9781452950563

[3] Davis, Belinda (2010), "A Whole World Opening Up", Changing the World, Changing Oneself: Political Protest and Collective Identities in West Germany and the U.S. in the 1960s and 1970s, Berghahn Books, pp. 264–265, ISBN 9781845458089

[4] Alavi, Seyed Ali (2019), Iran and Palestine: Past, Present, Future, Routledge, p. 19, ISBN 9781000022919

[5] Rahnema, Ali (2021), Call to Arms: Iran's Marxist Revolutionaries: Formation and Evolution of the Fada'is, 1964–1976, Oneworld Publications, ISBN 9781786079862

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v t e 1979 Iranian Constitutional Assembly election
Results	Tehran Khorasan East Azerbaijan Mazandaran Khuzestan Isfahan Fars West Azerbaijan Gilan Markazi Kerman Kermanshahan Hamedan Zanjan Lorestan Kordestan Sistan and Baluchestan Bushehr Semnan Yazd Hormozgan Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Ilam Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad Armenians Assyrians Jews Zoroastrians
Electoral blocs	Great Islamic Coalition Quintuple Coalition Septuple Coalition Grand National Alliance
Related topics	Assembly for the Final Review of the Constitution Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran December 1979 Iranian constitutional referendum

Parties in coalition

Candidates

See also

References