Ahmadinejad rival wins top Iran parliament post

BEIRUT, Lebanon – A powerful rival to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected speaker of Iran’s parliament Wednesday, clearing the way for a potential challenge to the hard-line head of state ahead of 2009 presidential elections.

Ali Larijani, Iran’s well-connected former chief nuclear negotiator, made it immediately clear he would play a broad role in vital matters usually dominated by Ahmadinejad. While reaffirming Tehran’s hard-line stance on its nuclear program, which has drawn international criticism, he vowed Wednesday that parliament would play an active role in shaping Iran’s defense of the controversial effort.

“A mysterious diplomatic give-and-take is under way between the U.S. and the U.N. nuclear agency to bring baseless allegations against Iran,” he told members of the parliament, or Majlis, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency. If such pressures continue, he said, the parliament “will intervene in the case and set a new line for cooperation” with international arms inspectors.

The U.N. Security Council has demanded that oil- and gas-rich Iran halt its drive to master the enrichment of uranium, suspecting it is the cornerstone for a future nuclear weapons program.

Iran’s unique political system blends elements of a clerical dictatorship and a democratic republic. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei sits atop a government that features presidential and parliamentary elections in which candidates loyal to the regime may compete.

Larijani won 232 out of 263 votes cast to beat out incumbent Speaker Gholam-Hossein Hadad-Adel, who rarely challenged Ahmadinejad. Larijani’s ascent signals hostility to the president among the new batch of mostly conservative lawmakers voted to office in March parliamentary elections, analysts said.

Enmity between the president and the new speaker runs deep. The two men ran against each other for president in 2005, with Ahmadinejad winning the post. As Iran’s nuclear negotiator, Larijani chafed against Ahmadinejad’s belligerent international tone, which he complained undermined his talks with European leaders and international arms inspectors.