Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has lost Tuesday a key position within the government, ceding the presidency of the Assembly of Experts Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani, a religious conservative Iranian news agencies reported.
Mr Rafsanjani had said in his speech at the opening session of the Assembly of religious experts that would not stand for the position if the candidacy of Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani.
The Assembly of religious experts, which has 86 members, is responsible for appointing, monitoring and eventually dismiss the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Mahdavi Kani, influential religious conservative who was Prime Minister for a year shortly after the Islamic revolution in 1979, aged 80.
Mr.Rafsandajani, moderate conservative who was president of the Islamic Republic for eight years (1989-1997), has for several months the target of a broad political offensive of the ultra-conservatives, who accuse him of having supported the opposition in the reformist crisis that followed the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in June 2009.
It takes yet another important position within the regime, as Chairman of the Expediency Council, which advises the guide and arbiter in disputes between parliament and government. But there is appointed directly by Supreme Leader.
