This Sunday, April 28, many Iranians will quietly mark the 73rd anniversary of the election of Mohammed Mossadegh in 1951 as prime minister, the last leader to hold the position courtesy of a democratic election in Iran.

The famed Iranian political figure rose to prominence as part of a national movement to tackle inequalities compounded by the exploitative relationship between the British-owned oil company (then known as the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company but today recognised as BP) and the Iranian government.

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His decision days later to nationalise the oil industry prompted the British and American governments to begin plotting for his removal, which they duly achieved in an orchestrated coup in August 1953. This profoundly anti-democratic manoeuvre succeeded in concentrating power in the hands of the authoritarian Shah (the dictator of choice for the West), whose ruthless regime would ultimately provoke an uprising that would empower religious fundamentalists to seize control........

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