Iran's parliamentary election to rearrange power line-up: speaker

Iran's first post-sanctions parliamentary election would see a shift in power line-up in the country's legislative bodies, the incumbent parliament speaker said Sunday.

"The rotation of (political) forces in the country is a felicitous development," the speaker, Ali Larijani, was quoted by Press TV as saying.

He hailed the conduct of Friday's two key elections in the country as "glorious," saying that "People's decision on the (political) forces should be respected."

According to the results announced by the Interior Ministry on Sunday, Larijani was re-elected as the representative of Iran's religious city of Qom for the next parliament, or Majlis.

Earlier in the day, the prominent cleric and former centrist president, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, said people decide on who to stay in power and who to go.

"Nobody can resist the will of majority. Anybody whom people don't favor, should leave," Rafsanjani tweeted alluding to the results of the vote counts that represented the gains for the reformists in Iran's recent parliamentary election.

Based on the latest results from votes for the Assembly of Experts, a deliberative body of Islamic theologians which decides on the leadership of the country, Rafsanjani takes the lead among the 16 candidates eligible for Tehran seats in the assembly.

Rafsanjani is a current member of the assembly and chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council of the Establishment.

The latest results of Iran's parliamentary polls released on Sunday indicated a significant gain for reformist candidates in the capital Tehran.

The Interior Ministry said of about 2.75 million ballots counted in Tehran, the reformist coalition has secured all 30 seats in the capital. The prominent reformist figure, Mohammed Reza Aref, leads the race for Majlis in Tehran.

It did not mention the percentage of the counted votes in Tehran, but added that the count is continuing.

With Tehran results, it can be claimed that the reformist camp has regained ground that was lost after 2004 in Iran's Majlis.

Media reports also said Sunday that conservatives are leading the race with a narrow margin in other regions in Iran where counting has been concluded.

Observers believed that the next Majlis will open further space for the reformists and moderates.

Currently, almost two thirds of Majlis representatives are from the principlists camp, and the rest encompasses independents and a small portion of reformists.

Iranian Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli said earlier that the final results would hopefully come out in the following days, and that in some regions the candidates have not been able to win the required number of votes in the first round, so they have to run for another contest in the runoff race.

According to the Iranian law, Majlis candidates shall win at least a quarter of the votes in the first round in each region so as to secure a seat in the parliament. Otherwise, a second round of voting is needed.

The Iranian minister said the second round of election for the Majlis will be held in the second half of April 2016.

Of nearly 55 million eligible Iranians, more than 60 percent attended voting for the two elections of Majlis and Assembly of Experts on Friday, he said.

Polling in Iran's first post-sanctions parliamentary elections concluded on Friday after five voting extensions due to high public turnout.

Out of 12,000 registered candidates, 6,229 are competing for 290 seats in the Majlis. Iranians will also choose 88 members of the Assembly of Experts out of 166 qualified candidates.

The Assembly of Experts is elected every eight years and charged with electing and removing the Supreme Leader of the country and supervising his activities. Endit