Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati elected to head Iran’s Assembly of Experts

Baku. 24 May. REPORT.AZ/ Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati was chosen to head Iran’s Assembly of Experts on Tuesday, which oversees the work of the country’s supreme leader and will elect his successor, state television reported, Report informs referring to the Iranian media.

The 89-year-old ayatollah is one of the few hardliners who secured re-election in a February vote that saw a landslide for reformist and moderates in the capital, and big gains elsewhere.

Ayatollah Jannati was voted chairman of the 88-member Assembly with 51 votes.

No moderates or reformists stood for the post.

Former president Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who had chaired the assembly until 2011 and who topped the polls in Tehran three months ago, did not put his name forward, with media reports suggesting he could muster no more than 20 of the assembly’s votes.

Two other conservatives, Tehran prayer leader Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini, a moderate with reformist support, and Mahmoud Hashemi Sharhoudi, the former judiciary chief, won 21 and 13 votes respectively.

Despite the advances for reformists in February’s election, the assembly remains controlled by conservatives.