Moderate Wins Iran Election

By Michael Slackman

In another sign of the growing discontent with Iran’s radical policies, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani won an election to lead the Assembly of Experts, a body of 86 senior clerics that monitors the nation’s supreme leader and chooses his successor. Rafsanjani, who some analysts say is interested in reversing Iran’s international isolation, was elected chairman of the assembly with 41 votes. His opponent, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, received 31 votes from a total of 76 cast.

Rafsanjani’s victory came in the face of a campaign by the conservative government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to secure the post for Jannati. This week it removed Rafsanjani’s autobiography from store shelves because it contained a passage claiming that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini supported plans to drop the slogan “Death to America,” a popular conservative rallying call. Rafsanjani and that passage in his book were then derided in the newspaper Kayhan, the voice of the most radical forces in Iran.

Analysts said that Rafsanjani’s influence is as low as it has ever been and that it was not clear if his victory would improve his status or drag down the assembly. Rafsanjani was defeated by Ahmadinejad in the race for president two years ago and has found his voice increasingly muffled ever since. His advice to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is largely ignored, the analysts said.

“I don’t think anything will change at the assembly,” said Abbas Abdi, a political analyst in Tehran. “It does not have anything to do with the political trends.”

Theoretically, Rafsanjani should be a powerful force. In addition to leading the assembly, he will retain his post as head of the Expediency Council, which negotiates differences between Parliament and the hard-liners on the Guardian Council. The supreme leader has final say on all matters of state, and he has shown no interest in reinstating Rafsanjani’s influence. He has long viewed him as a challenge to his own authority, the analysts said.

Just before the vote, Rafsanjani hinted that he might push the assembly to raise its profile; in the past three decades it has not issued a single public report.

“If the experts assembly wants to play a more active role in the country’s affairs, it has the religious and legal justification to do that,” the state news agency IRNA quoted Rafsanjani as saying.

According to the agency, he added: “Perhaps the assembly will do so in its upcoming term.”

Originally published by The New York Times Media Group.

(c) 2007 International Herald Tribune. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.