National Democratic Front (Iran)

The National Democratic Front (Persian: جبهه دموکراتیک ملی, romanized: Jebhe-ye demokrātīk-e mellī) was a liberal political party founded during the Iranian Revolution of 1979 that overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and was banned shortly after by the Islamic government. It was founded by Hedayatollah Matin-Daftari, a grandson of celebrated Iranian nationalist Mohammad Mosaddegh and a "lawyer who had been active in human rights causes" before the downfall of the shah and the son of the fourth prime minister and the jurist Ahmad Matin-Daftari. Though it was short-lived, the party has been described as one of "the three major movements of the political center" in Iran during this period, and its ouster was one of the first indications that the Islamist revolutionaries in control of the Iranian Revolution would not tolerate liberal political forces.