Rafsanjani picked to head Iran's powerful assembly
By Edmund Blair
http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL0417001120070904?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNewsTEHRAN (Reuters) - Clerics picked Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Tuesday to lead a powerful Iranian government body, in a boost for the former president who wants better ties with the West and a blow to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Rafsanjani's victory over a hardline rival to become speaker of the Assembly of Experts is a further step in his political recovery at the expense of Ahmadinejad, a vociferous critic of the West who beat the pragmatic, mid-ranking cleric in the 2005 presidential race, analysts said.
But the change will not herald a shift in Iran's foreign or nuclear policy nor would it have a big impact on the assembly's tendency to stay clear of day-to-day politics, analysts added.
The assembly is an 86-seat body with the power to appoint, supervise and even dismiss the Islamic Republic's highest authority, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
It has, however, not exercised the power to dismiss the supreme leader and is not believed to have directly intervened in policy-making.
The clerics, many of them in their 60s or more, met to replace Speaker Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, who died in July.
"(Rafsanjani) was elected as the head of the Assembly of Experts," assembly spokesman Hossein Habibzadeh told Reuters.
Rafsanjani, president in the 1990s, has increasingly sided with pro-reform politicians opposed to Ahmadinejad. In the speaker contest, he beat Ayatollah Jannati, head of the Guardian Council, an oversight body reformists blame for blocking many of their candidates in presidential and parliamentary elections.
Rafsanjani won 41 votes to Jannati's 34, Iranian media said.
"It means to hardliners, like Jannati and Ahmadinejad, that (Rafsanjani) is not somebody they can sideline easily. He is going to play a role in the leadership of the country and they have to come to terms with that," said one political analyst.
'WE SHOULD NOT PROVOKE'
"Maybe the reformists, after the election, (will) say, 'It is a victory for us ,and it is a sign of victory in the parliament (election in March)," Amir Mohebian, a conservative commentator, said before the vote he expected Rafsanjani to win.
He said such an assessment by reformists, who seek social and political change, would overstate their position but he said the win would add luster to Rafsanjani's political comeback.
Rafsanjani scored another victory in December by topping the vote in the Tehran constituency in the December assembly election, well ahead of a cleric seen as close to Ahmadinejad.
Rafsanjani, who has had a hand in virtually every major political development in the country during and since the 1979 Islamic revolution, has become an increasingly vocal critic of Ahmadinejad's government, albeit usually in veiled terms.
Before going into Tuesday's closed-door session of the assembly, he told reporters: "At the same time as defending our rightful positions, we should not provoke and we should not provide an excuse (to Iran's enemies)."
Opponents of Ahmadinejad accuse the president of drawing the wrath of world powers and provoking U.N. sanctions in a standoff over Tehran's atomic plans because of firebrand speeches against the West. They say quiet diplomacy would be better.
The assembly is dominated by traditional conservatives, ardent supporters of Iran's system of clerical rule but some of whom are also seen as wary of Ahmadinejad's approach.
Analysts said Rafsanjani's win showed his skill in bridging more than one political camp and would enhance his standing with traditional conservatives in the seminaries of Qom, the heartland of the clerical establishment south of Tehran.
(Additional reporting by Hossein Jaseb and Zahra Hosseinian)
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