NYT: Rival to Iran's President Ahmadiinejad is Elected Speaker

May 29, 2008
Rival to Iran’s President Is Elected Speaker
By NAZILA FATHI and GRAHAM BOWLEY


Ali Larijani, second from right, the newly elected parliament speaker, with Saeed Jalili, a top nuclear negotiator, right, during the opening ceremony of Iran's new parliament in Tehran on Tuesday.

TEHRAN, Iran — A rival to Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected by an overwhelming majority as speaker of the Parliament on Wednesday, a strong signal of growing impatience with his economic policies and a possible sign of a political shift in the country.

The new speaker, Ali Larijani, Iran’s former nuclear negotiator, is viewed by the West as a moderating influence in Tehran. He said his priority would be to address Iran’s economic problems.

The role of parliamentary speaker is a powerful position in Iranian politics and analysts said Mr. Larijani could use it to challenge Mr. Ahmadinejad, against whom Mr. Larijani ran for president in 2005. Mr. Larijani won the speaker position by a vote of 232 to 31.

The lopsided vote appeared to be a rebuke of Mr. Ahmadinejad, who has faced growing dissatisfaction in Iran about his steering of the economy during a period of grinding inflation and rolling blackouts last winter that left people without electricity and heat for hours at a time.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/29/world/middleeast/29iran.html?hp