Tehran - Iran's ex-president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani on
Friday played down his election victory in the Assembly of Experts,
the country's highest religious body.
'The cleric jurisprudents serving in the Assembly of Experts just
want to fulfil their religious duties - elections within the assembly
are just made internally within the jurisprudents and therefore not
political,' Rafsanjani said at the Friday prayers ceremony in Tehran.
Tuesday's election of Rafsanjani as head of Assembly of Experts
was interpreted by several press sources as a defeat for the
country's reigning radical ideology in general and President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad in particular.
Rafsanjani himself however rejected such interpretations and said
although some cleric in the assembly might belong to certain
political factions, but none of them sought any political power
struggle.
The 86-member Assembly of Experts - which is elected just once
every eight years - has the power to appoint, supervise and even oust
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who constitutionally has the
final say on all state affairs.
Despite the rather theological nature of the assembly, the victory
of Rafsanjani over closest rival Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, a hardliner
and close aide to the president, was regarded by observers as at
least a warning signal by the country's clergy elite to Ahmadinejad.
Rafsanjani is a fierce opponent of Ahmadinejad's policies and is
said to head, together with former president Mohammad Khatami, the
moderate-reformist faction in next March's presidential elections
against the ultraconservative wing close to the president.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Thursday rejected
the alleged politicization of the Assembly of Experts, and described
some foreign and local press reports concerning Rafsanjani's election
as 'hostile propaganda' which tried to depict the development as a
'power struggle' between Iran's political factions.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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