Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran

The Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran (Abadgaran) was a conservative-principlist political coalition formed in 2003. Described as 'Iran's neocons', it was composed mainly of IRGC and Basij veterans who had been marginalised under Rafsanjani and Khatami. It swept the 2003 municipal and 2004 parliamentary elections — helped enormously by the Guardian Council's mass disqualification of reformist candidates — and backed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's successful 2005 presidential run. Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, the Majlis Speaker from 2004–2008, was a key figure.