Hardline former Tehran mayor Mohammad Qalibaf becomes Iran parliament speaker

Mr Qalibaf's election to the post comes as supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei seeks to perpetuate his hardline legacy

Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, centre, with a group of legislators after being elected as speaker of Iran's parliament on May 28, 2020. AP Photo

Iran’s mostly conservative parliament on Thursday elected one of its hardliners as speaker, a largely symbolic but high-profile position amid intensified jockeying for power in the country.

Official media reported that legislators voted overwhelmingly for Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former mayor of Tehran who played a role in crackdowns on several anti-regime demonstrators in the past two decades.

Mr Qalibaf and other conservatives among Iran’s political class have been on the ascendency over the past 15 years. They have been silently positioning themselves for the eventual exit of 81-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei from the political scene.

Mr Khamenei, the brain behind Iran’s “resistance” ideology in the face of tensions with the United States, has been boosting his allies in the judiciary and the political system while tolerating less compliant figures who nonetheless confer with him on what constitutes national interest.

Parliament in Iran's system of Velayat-e Faqih, or "rule of the jurist", falls short of being merely a rubber stamp but is not fully democratic either, with a mechanism built into the electoral system to exclude candidates deemed ideologically unsuitable.

Conservatives swept Iran’s last election for the 290-member legislature in February. Many candidates seen as reformists were disqualified from running, while voter turnout fell below 50 per cent for the first time since the 1979 revolution that ushered in clerical rule.

Although hardliners have been basking in what they regard as triumphs on the internal and external front, societal and regional fault lines distinguish, and sometimes divide, them.

Mr Qalibaf, from the outlying region of Razavi Khorasan, replaces Ali Larijani, the speaker of parliament for almost 12 years who hails from Qom, a centre of Shiite religious learning.

Unlike former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of his main political allies, Mr Qalibaf was unable to use the mayoralty of Tehran as a springboard for the presidency, failing in two attempts.

He was a commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and headed the national police, not shying from advocating violence against peaceful demonstrators.

In thanking his supporters, Mr Qalibaf singled out the security apparatus. He said he would make further remarks in his capacity as speaker next week.

Mr Larijani is more of a subtle, old-school operator with links to the religious establishment and the merchant class, as opposed to Mr Qalibaf's more populist approach targeting mainly a younger, more disadvantaged audience.

Mr Khamenei appointed Mr Larijani as an adviser on Thursday and made him a member of the Expediency Council, which sometimes adjudicates among different layers in the ruling system. The appointment signals that the former speaker could now be a player in preparing for succession.