Mehdi Karroubi, Iran’s former parliamentary speaker founded the reformist party Etemad-e Melli, meaning national trust, in 2005 after losing to Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad in the first round of the presidential election.

The FT’s Tehran correspondent Najmeh Bozorgmehr interviewed Mr Karroubi in his office in affluent northern Tehran about his party and their prospects in parliamentary elections on March 14.