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Tehran sends influential moderates to Assembly of Experts

Xinhua, February 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

Influential moderate clerics from Tehran province have won seats in Iran's next Assembly of Experts that is tasked with discussing and deciding on the leadership of the country, according to the results issued by Iran's Interior Ministry on Monday.

Vote counts on the election of the incoming assembly members was over and the name of 16 representatives of Tehran in the body were specified.

Out of the 16 elected candidates for the assembly in Tehran province, 15 were supported by reformists and moderates.

From about 4.5 million votes counted in Tehran, Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president, is at the top with 2.301 million votes, and the moderate President Hassan Rouhani is in the third position with 2.238 million votes.

Iranian Interior Minister, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, announced that the nationwide vote count of the election for the Assembly of Experts ended on Monday.

Based on the cross-country vote results for the assembly, the composition of the body will not undergo a significant change, save for two prominent and powerful conservative clerics who failed to secure seats in Iran's next Assembly of Experts.

Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi and Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi, members of the outgoing assembly, could not win enough votes to secure their places among the 16 required in Tehran province.

Mohammad Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi is a conservative politician, Islamic scholar and Shi'ite cleric. He has been called "the most conservative" with the most "powerful" clerical influence in Iran's leading center of religious learning, the city of Qom.

Mohammad Yazdi is also a Shi'ite cleric who served as head of Judiciary System of Iran between 1989 and 1999. Yazdi is an incumbent chairman-member of the Assembly of Experts and a member of the Guardian Council.

The Assembly of Experts is a deliberative body of Islamic theologians or Mujtahids, elected for eight-year terms, and charged with electing and removing the Supreme Leader of Iran and supervising his activities.

On Friday, the Iranians partook in one of the country's most important elections of Assembly of Experts to choose 88 members out of 166 qualified hopefuls. Endit