Ahmad Tavakkoli

Ahmad Tavakkoli احمد توکلی
File:Ahmad Tavakkoli Cropped.jpg
Minister of Labour
In office 12 November 1981 – 1 November 1985
President	Ali Khamenei
Prime Minister	Mir-Hossein Mousavi
Preceded by	Mir-Mohammad Sadeqi
Succeeded by	Abolqasem Sarhadizadeh
Head of Relief Foundation
In office 19 December 1979 – 12 November 1981
Preceded by	Habibollah Asgaroladi
Succeeded by	Mehdi Karoubi
Member of the Parliament of Iran
Incumbent
Assumed office 3 May 2004
Constituency	Tehran
In office 4 May 1980 – 12 November 1981
Constituency	Behshahr
Personal details
Born	March 1951 (age 73) Behshahr, Iran
Political party	Islamic Coalition Party
Residence	Tehran, Iran
Alma mater	University of Nottingham
Religion	Twelver Shi'a Islam
Website	Official website

Ahmad Tavakkoli (Persian: احمد توکلی‎‎) (born 1951) is a conservative representative of Tehran in the Iranian parliament and the former director of Majlis Research Center.

Career

Tavakkoli was the minister of labour under Mir-Hossein Mousavi, a parliament representative from Behshahr, and a presidential candidate in two of the presidential elections in Iran (running against Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami).

Tavakkoli temporarily left politics after the leftists oppositions forced him out of the ministry of labour. He founded Resalat, a conservative newspaper, and later left Iran to study economics in the UK, where he received his PhD.

Views and personal life

Tavakkoli is a critic of a capitalist economy, and backs the government's role in controlling the economy. He is a cousin of the Larijani brothers, including Ali Larijani and Mohammad Javad Larijani.

Tavakkoli is also one of the fierce critics of the President Ahmadinejad. On 2 March 2011, the PBS' Tehran Bureau reported that Tavakkoli criticized President for mentioning only Iran and not Islam in recent speeches.