Tehran, Iran’s capital of 12 million, a city which is called "enormous," has gone through 15 mayoral elections involving various political groups within the Islamic Republic power structure since the 1979 revolution.

Tehran's mayor is chosen by Tehran's City Council. While the Principlists have received a majority of the votes between 2002 and 2013 owing to the sweeping disqualification of Reformists or sulking citizens avoidance of the ballot box, the tide has turned and the Reformists have a decisive majority in the council and are considered the municipality's decisive voice.

Over the past three decades, Tehran’s mayors have traditionally been elected chiefly from among political celebrities. According to a well-known political journalist, "There is no doubt that [Tehran’s] most important mayors have been Gholamhossein Karbaschi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf." He continued, "Of course, they have mostly been rabble-rousers. Otherwise, [Mohammad] Tavassoli [Tehran’s first mayor after the revolution, under the provisional government] would also have left a name for himself."

Karbaschi is the former general secretary of the Executives of Construction Party and one of Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani’s closest allies. He remained Tehran’s mayor for nine years (from 1989 to 1998), but ultimately landed in prison. In 1997, he supported the electoral campaign of Mohammad Khatami and remained in his post when he was elected. But in 1998 he, along with a number of his advisers and mayors in Tehran province, was brought into the custody of the intelligence division of the security services commanded by Mohammad Reza Naghdi, current commander of the Basij, arrested and interrogated and, according to his announcement during his sensational trial, tortured. He was accused of financial crimes by Judge Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ezhe’i, the current general prosecutor, and convicted and sentenced to three years in prison and 10 years banishment from government work. He was accused, among other things, of using Tehran’s municipal resources to support "a private candidacy" during the seventh presidential elections.