National Front (Iran)

The National Front of Iran (Persian: جبهه‌ ملی ایران, romanized: Jebhe-ye Melli-ye Irân) is an opposition political organization in Iran. Founded in 1949 by Mohammad Mosaddegh, it is the country’s oldest—and arguably largest—pro-democracy group operating inside Iran, although it has never regained the prominence it enjoyed in the early 1950s.

Initially, the front was an umbrella organization for a broad coalition of forces with nationalist, liberal-democratic, socialist, bazaari, secular and Islamic tendencies, that mobilized to successfully campaign for the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry. In 1951, the Front formed a government which was deposed by the 1953 Iranian coup d'état and subsequently repressed. Members attempted to revive the Front in 1960, 1965, and 1977.

Before 1953 and throughout the 1960s, the Front was torn by strife between secular and religious elements. Over time its coalition split into various squabbling factions, with the Front gradually emerging as the leading organization of secular liberals with nationalist members adhering to liberal democracy and social democracy.

During the Iranian Revolution, the Front supported the overthrow of the monarchy and its replacement with an Islamic Republic. In the early years of the post-revolutionary government, it served as the primary symbol of the nationalist movement. It was banned in July 1981. Although it is under constant surveillance and officially illegal, it remains active inside Iran.