- Mahnaz Maimanat was a member of the Executive Committee since 1989, member of the Leadership Council since 1993, member of the Central Council since 2014, and co-Secretary General since 2021. She received 56 percent of the votes in the first round of voting.
- Maimanat’s mother and two brothers were killed by the clerical regime.
- In a message, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi described Ms. Maimanat as a woman who has combined dynamism and defiant spirit with an even deeper sense of commitment and responsibility for the freedom of the Iranian people and her homeland. With this election, the PMOI declared its firm determination in toppling the ruling religious fascism.
At the start of the sixty-second year of the founding of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), the Organization’s new Secretary General was elected in three sequential rounds of voting in seven countries.
In its large gathering on September 6, 2026, held simultaneously in France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Albania, the PMOI elected Ms. Mahnaz Maimanat as the Organization’s new Secretary General. The position is a two-year term and can be renewed by the PMOI’s Central Council. The Secretary General is elected in three rounds. In the first round, members of the Central Council and in the second round, officials and cadres from various sections engaged in deliberations. The voting is carried out by secret ballot. In the third and final round, all available members vote by raising their hands.
The large gathering to elect the new Secretary General was convened by Ms. Zohreh Akhyani, the Chair of the PMOI’s Central Council. In the first round, Ms. Mahnaz Maimanat, Badri Pourtabbakh, and Narges Azdanlou received 56%, 24%, and 20% of the vote respectively.
Born in 1959 in Tehran, Ms. Maimanat became acquainted with the PMOI as a university student. She took part in demonstrations and the uprising against the Shah’s dictatorship and became a member of the PMOI after the victory of the antiNewsre-monarchical revolution. She continued her studies at Tehran University’s School of Agriculture until universities were shut down during Khomeini’s so-called Cultural Revolution.
She became a member of the PMOI Executive Committee in 1989, and assumed responsibility for the PMOI’s Central Office in 1991. She became a member of the Organization’s Leadership Council in 1993, a member of the Central Council in 2014, and the co-Secretary General in 2021.
Ms. Maimanat’s mother, Akhtar Mowlavi, was a teacher when she joined the PMOI along with her children. She was killed in 1988 by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). One of Ms. Maimanat’s brothers, Massoud, (19), was arrested in 1982 and shot by firing squad in Evin Prison in August 1983 after seven months of torture. Her other brother, Mahmoud, (28), studying architecture at Tehran University, was executed on July 30, 1988, in Gohardasht Prison during the 1988 massacre of political prisoners. Another brother was sentenced to four years of imprisonment in exile in Borazjan, in the southern province of Bushehr, solely for keeping in contact with his sister.
Ms. Maimanat’s father, Abdollah Maimanat, was a highly respected judge who, after Khomeini came to power and brought the judiciary under his control, resigned from the bench and went into law practice. Throughout the 1980s, he went from one prison to another looking for his children, and for the rest of his life, he searched for their graves.
At the end of gathering, Ms. Akhyani introduced the former Secretary General Ms. Zahra Merrikhi as the new Chair of the Central Council. According to the rules of procedure, the former Secretary General assumes the Chairmanship of the Central Council.
At the end of the vote, Ms. Maimanat thanked all members of the PMOI and introduced Ms. Badri Pourtabbakh and Ms. Narges Azdanlou as her senior deputies.
In a message after the election of the new Secretary General, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi lauded the values embodied in, and enduring contributions of Ms. Zahra Merrikhi, the previous Secretary General. She described Ms. Maimanat as a woman of noble character who has combined dynamism and a defiant spirit with an even deeper sense of commitment and responsibility for the freedom of the Iranian people and her homeland. With this election, the PMOI declared its firm determination to topple the ruling religious fascism.
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI)
6 September 2026
