Election On 28 April 1951, the Shah confirmed Mosaddegh as Prime Minister after the Majlis (
Parliament of Iran) elected Mosaddegh by a vote of 79–12. After a period of assassinations by
Fada'iyan-e Islam and political unrest by the
National Front, the Shah was aware of Mosaddegh's rising popularity and political power. Demonstrations erupted in Tehran after Mosaddegh was elected, with crowds further invigorated by the speeches of members from the National Front. There was a special focus on the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the heavy involvement of foreign actors and influences in Iranian affairs. Although Iran was not officially a colony or a protectorate, it was still heavily controlled by foreign powers beginning with concessions provided by the Qajar Shahs and leading up to the oil agreement signed by
Reza Shah in 1933. The new administration introduced a wide range of social reforms: unemployment compensation was introduced, factory owners were ordered to pay benefits to sick and injured workers, and peasants were freed from forced labour in their landlords' estates. In 1952, Mosaddegh passed the Land Reform Act, which forced landlords to pay a 20% tax on their revenue, half of which was placed in a development fund, while the rest went to the sharecropping tenants. This development fund paid for various projects such as public baths, rural housing, and pesticides. In March 1951, Mosaddegh
nationalised the
Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, cancelling its oil concession, which was otherwise set to expire in 1993, and
expropriating its assets. Mosaddegh saw the AIOC as an arm of the British government controlling much of the oil in Iran, pushing him to seize what the British had built in Iran. The next month, a committee of five majlis deputies was sent to Khuzestan to enforce the nationalisation. Mosaddegh justified his nationalisation policy by claiming Iran was "the rightful owner..." of all the oil in Iran. In a 21 June 1951 speech, he pointed out that Iran could use the money: The confrontation between Iran and Britain escalated as Mosaddegh's government refused to allow the British any involvement in their former enterprise. Britain made sure Iran could not sell the oil, which it considered stolen. In July, Mosaddegh broke off negotiations with AIOC after it threatened to "pull out its employees" and told owners of oil tanker ships that "receipts from the Iranian government would not be accepted on the world market." Two months later, the AIOC evacuated its technicians and closed down the oil installations. Under nationalised management, many refineries lacked the trained technicians that were needed to continue production. The British government announced a
de facto blockade and
embargo, reinforced its naval force in the Persian Gulf, and lodged complaints against Iran before the
United Nations Security Council, where, on 15 October 1951, Mosaddegh declared that "the petroleum industry has contributed nothing to well-being of the people or to the technological progress or industrial development of my country." in their first meeting after Mosaddegh's election as Prime MinisterThe British government also threatened legal action against purchasers of oil produced in the Iranian refineries and obtained an agreement with its sister international oil companies not to fill the void left by the AIOC. The entire Iranian oil industry came to a virtual standstill, with oil production dropping almost 96% from in 1950 to in 1952. This
Abadan Crisis reduced Iran's oil income to almost nothing, putting a severe strain on the implementation of Mosaddegh's promised domestic reforms. At the same time,
BP and
Aramco doubled their production in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Iraq to make up for lost production in Iran so that no hardship was felt in Britain. Still enormously popular in late 1951, Mosaddegh called elections and introduced a modified version of his 1944 electoral reform bill. As his base of support was in urban areas and not in the provinces, the proposed reform no longer barred illiterate voters, but it placed them into a separate category from literate voters and increased the representation of the urban population. The opposition defeated the bill on the grounds that it would "unjustly discriminate patriots who had been voting for the last forty years", thus leaving the National Front to compete against conservatives, royalists, and tribal leaders alike in the upcoming election. His government came under scrutiny for ending the
1952 election before rural votes could be fully counted. According to historian
Ervand Abrahamian: "Realizing that the opposition would take the vast majority of the provincial seats, Mosaddegh stopped the voting as soon as 79 deputies—just enough to form a parliamentary quorum—had been elected." An alternative account is offered by journalist
Stephen Kinzer: Beginning in the early 1950s under the guidance of
C.M. Woodhouse, chief of the British intelligence station in Tehran, Britain's covert operations network had funnelled roughly £10,000 per month to the Rashidian brothers (two of Iran's most influential royalists) in the hope of buying off, according to CIA estimates, "the armed forces, the Majlis (Iranian parliament), religious leaders, the press, street gangs, politicians and other influential figures". Thus, in his statement asserting electoral manipulation by "foreign agents", Mosaddegh suspended the elections. His National Front party had made up 30 of the 79 deputies elected. Yet none of those present vetoed the statement, and completion of the elections was postponed indefinitely. The 17th Majlis convened in April 1952, with the minimum required of the 136 seats filled. But tension soon began to escalate in the Majlis. Conservative, pro-Shah, and pro-British opponents refused to grant Mosaddegh special powers to deal with the economic crisis caused by the sharp drop in revenue and voiced regional grievances against the capital Tehran, while the National Front waged "a propaganda war against the landed upper class".
Resignation and uprising On 16 July 1952, during the royal approval of his new
cabinet, Mosaddegh insisted on the constitutional prerogative of the Prime Minister to name a Minister of War and the Chief of Staff, something the Shah had done up to that point. The Shah refused, seeing it as unconstitutional and a means for Mosaddegh to consolidate his power over the government at the expense of the monarchy. In response, Mosaddegh announced his resignation, appealing directly to the public for support, pronouncing that "in the present situation, the struggle started by the Iranian people cannot be brought to a victorious conclusion." Veteran politician
Ahmad Qavam (also known as Ghavam os-Saltaneh) was appointed as Iran's new Prime Minister. On the day of his appointment, he announced his intention to resume negotiations with the British to end the oil dispute, a reversal of Mosaddegh's policy. The National Front—along with various Nationalist, Islamist, and socialist parties and groups—including Tudeh—responded by calling for protests, assassinations of the Shah and other royalists, strikes, and mass demonstrations in favour of Mosaddegh. Major strikes broke out in all of Iran's major towns, with the Bazaar closing down in Tehran. Over 250 demonstrators in Tehran, Hamadan, Ahvaz, Isfahan, and Kermanshah were killed or suffered serious injuries. On the fourth day of mass demonstrations,
Ayatollah Abol-Ghasem Kashani called on the people to wage a "holy war" against Qavam. On the following day,
Si-ye Tir (the 30th of Tir on the Iranian calendar), military commanders ordered their troops back to barracks, fearful of over-straining the enlisted men's loyalty, and left Tehran in the hands of the protesters. Frightened by the unrest, the Shah asked for Qavam's resignation and re-appointed Mosaddegh to form a government, granting him control over the Ministry of War he had previously demanded. The Shah asked whether he should step down as monarch, but Mosaddegh declined.
Reinstatement and emergency powers . More popular than ever, a greatly strengthened Mosaddegh introduced a single-clause bill to parliament to grant him emergency "dictatorial decree" powers for six months to pass "any law he felt necessary for obtaining not only financial solvency, but also electoral, judicial, and educational reforms" in order to implement his nine-point reform program and to bypass the stalled negotiations of the nationalisation of the oil industry. On 3 August 1952, the
Majlis voted in approval and elected Ayatollah Kashani as House Speaker. Kashani's Islamic scholars, as well as the
Tudeh Party, proved to be two of Mosaddegh's key political allies, although relations with both were often strained. In addition to the reform program, which intended to make changes to a broad region of laws covering elections, financial institutions, employment, the judiciary, the press, education, health, and communications services, Mosaddegh tried to limit the monarchy's powers. He cut the Shah's personal budget, forbade his direct communications with foreign diplomats, and transferred royal lands back to the state. He also expelled the Shah's politically active sister,
Ashraf Pahlavi. Six months proved not long enough, so Mosaddegh asked for an extension in January 1953, successfully pressing Parliament to extend his emergency powers for another 12 months. Mosaddegh decreed a new land reform law to supersede it, establishing village councils and increasing the peasants' share of production. This weakened the landed aristocracy by imposing a 20% tax on their income, of which 20% was diverted back to the crop-sharing tenants and their rural banks. It also weakened them by levying heavy fines for compelling peasants to work without wages. Despite these accomplishments, Iranians were "becoming poorer and unhappier by the day", in large part due to the British-led boycott. As Mosaddegh's political coalition began to fray, his enemies increased in number. Partly through the efforts of Iranians sympathising with the British, and partly in fear of the growing dictatorial powers of the Prime Minister, several former members of Mosaddegh's coalition turned against him, fearing arrest. They included
Mozzafar Baghai, head of the worker-based Toilers party;
Hossein Makki, who had helped lead the takeover of the Abadan refinery and was at one point considered Mosaddegh's successor; and most outspokenly, Ayatollah Kashani, who damned Mosaddegh with the "vitriol he had once reserved for the British". The reason for difference of opinion among Makki and Mosaddegh was the sharp response of Mosaddegh to Kashani, who he saw as a largely inoffensive scholar who attracted public support. Hossein Makki strongly opposed the dissolution of the majlis by Mossadegh and evaluated that, because of its closure, the right to dismiss the Prime minister is reserved for the Shah. == Overthrow of Mosaddegh ==