Mohammad Khatami in the context of "Samuel P. Huntington"

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (né Sabbaghian; 28 October 1956) is an Iranian politician who served as the sixth president of Iran from 2005 to 2013. Ideologically a principlist and nationalist, he is currently a member of the Expediency Discernment Council and a strong supporter of Iran's nuclear programme. He was also the main political leader of the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, a coalition of conservative political groups in the country, and served as mayor of Tehran from 2003 to 2005, reversing many of his predecessor's reforms.

An engineer and teacher from a poor background, he was ideologically shaped by thinkers such as Navvab Safavi, Jalal Al-e-Ahmad, and Ahmad Fardid. After the Iranian Revolution, Ahmadinejad joined the Office for Strengthening Unity. Appointed a provincial governor in 1993, he was replaced along with all other provincial governors in 1997 after the election of President Mohammad Khatami and returned to teaching. Tehran's council elected him mayor in 2003. He took a religious hard line, reversing reforms of previous moderate mayors. His 2005 presidential campaign, supported by the Alliance of Builders of Islamic Iran, garnered 62% of the runoff election votes, and he became president on 3 August 2005.

Masoud Pezeshkian (born 29 September 1954) is an Iranian politician who is the ninth and current president of Iran since 2024. A member of the reformist faction, he is the oldest person to serve in this position, taking office at the age of 69.

Born in Mahabad, West Azerbaijan, to an Iranian Azerbaijani family, Pezeshkian graduated from the Tabriz University of Medical Sciences with a degree in medicine and served as a doctor for Iranian soldiers in the Iran–Iraq War (1980–1988). Pezeshkian served as governor of Piranshahr and Naghadeh counties and his political career began in 1997 when he joined Mohammad Khatami's administration as Deputy Health Minister. He served as Minister of Health and Medical Education from 2001 to 2005. He was later elected to the parliament five times, representing Tabriz, Osku and Azarshahr electoral district, from 2008 to 2024. During this time, Pezeshkian was also First Deputy Speaker of the Parliament from 2016 to 2020. Prior to the 2024 presidential election, he enrolled himself in two previous elections, the 2013 election, in which he withdrew, and the 2021 election, in which he was rejected from running. Presenting himself as a moderate, he won the election against principlist nominee Saeed Jalili.

The Reformists (Persian: اصلاح‌طلبان, romanized: Eslâh-Talabân) are a Islamic liberal political faction in Iran. Iran's "reform era" is sometimes said to have lasted from 1997 to 2005—the length of President Mohammad Khatami's two terms in office. The Council for Coordinating the Reforms Front is the main umbrella organization and coalition within the movement; however, there are reformist groups not aligned with the council, such as the Reformists Front. Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist, was elected president following the 2024 Iranian presidential election, and was subsequently confirmed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on 28 July.

Front of Followers of the Line of the Imam and the Leader (Persian: جبهه پیروان خط امام (ره) و رهبری), formerly known as Islamic Aligned Organizations (Persian: تشکل‌های اسلامی همسو) is a Coalition of Iranian Principlist political groups. The group which consists of a wide range of traditional conservative parties, is active since administration of Mohammad Khatami, and is aligned with The Two Societies.

The coalition was the main conservative electoral list for the 2000 Iranian legislative election, but became part of United Front of Conservatives' list for the 2008 and 2012 legislative elections.

Presidential elections were held in Iran on 23 May 1997, which resulted in an unpredicted win for the reformist candidate Mohammad Khatami. The election was notable not only for the lopsided majority of the winner – 70% – but for the high turnout. 80% of those eligible to vote did so, compared to 50% in the previous presidential election.

During the election, voting age was 15 and more than half of Iran's population was younger than 25.

Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami introduced the idea of Dialogue Among Civilizations as a response to Samuel P. Huntington's theory of a Clash of Civilizations. The term was initially used by Austrian philosopher Hans Köchler who in 1972, in a letter to UNESCO, had suggested the idea of an international conference on the "dialogue between different civilizations" (dialogue entre les différentes civilisations) and had organized, in 1974, a first international conference on the role of intercultural dialogue ("The Cultural Self-comprehension of Nations") with the support and under the auspices of Senegalese President Léopold Sédar Senghor.