Sep 7, 2007, 9:39 GMT
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.
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