Mahnaz Maimanat: Who Is the New Secretary-General of the People’s Mojahedin Organization?
The MEK After the 1979 Iranian Revolution
The 1979 revolution overthrew the Shah and established the Islamic Republic under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
The MEK had opposed the monarchy but soon found itself in conflict with the new government.
The organization criticized the Islamic Republic’s political and religious structure and demanded political freedoms.
By 1981, the confrontation had escalated dramatically.
The Iranian government banned the organization and pursued its members and supporters.
Thousands of MEK members and supporters were arrested, imprisoned or executed during the following years.
The organization subsequently moved much of its leadership outside Iran.
Conclusion: Who Is Mahnaz Maimanat?
Mahnaz Maimanat is a veteran senior figure of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) who was elected secretary-general in September 2026.
Her election does not represent the arrival of an unknown newcomer.
According to the PMOI’s own biography, she has occupied senior positions within the organization since the late 1980s, including membership of its Executive Committee, Leadership Council and Central Council, before serving as co-secretary general from 2021.
Her family history is also closely connected to the organization’s account of the political violence surrounding the MEK and the Islamic Republic.
At the same time, understanding Maimanat requires understanding the controversial history of the organization she now leads.
The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, or MEK/PMOI, is simultaneously described by its supporters as a long-standing democratic Iranian opposition movement and criticized by former members, human-rights organizations and other observers over its history, internal practices and relationship with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq.
Human Rights Watch has documented serious allegations concerning treatment of dissident members inside former MEK camps, while also documenting violence against MEK residents by Iraqi security forces.
The organization was also designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in 1997 but was removed from the US Foreign Terrorist Organization list in 2012.
Consequently, the most accurate way to understand Mahnaz Maimanat is not simply as “a new Iranian opposition leader,” but as a long-serving member of one of the most controversial Iranian opposition organizations of the modern era.
Her election places her at the center of the PMOI’s next chapter — a chapter that will test whether an organization founded in 1965 can remain politically relevant to an Iranian society that has changed dramatically over the past six decades.
