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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Iran’s parliament re-elected hard-liner Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf on Tuesday as its speaker, reaffirming its hard-right make-up within the wake of a helicopter crash that killed the nation’s president and international minister.
Of 287 lawmakers voting, 198 backed Qalibaf to retain the place he first took in 2021. He initially turned speaker following a string of failed presidential bids and 12 years because the chief of Iran’s capital metropolis, through which he constructed onto Tehran’s subway and supported the development of contemporary high-rises.
Many, nevertheless, know Qalibaf for his assist as a Revolutionary Guard basic for a violent crackdown on Iranian college college students in 1999. He additionally reportedly ordered stay gunfire be used towards Iranian college students in 2003 whereas serving because the nation’s police chief.
In Tuesday’s vote, challenger Mojtaba Zonnouri, a hard-line Shiite cleric who as soon as led parliament’s nationwide safety fee, gained 60 votes. A former international minister to hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Manouchehr Mottaki, acquired 5 votes.
Qalibaf provided no rapid remarks after the vote. The March parliament election noticed the nation’s lowest turnout since its 1979 Islamic Revolution. Of these elected to the 290-seat physique, hard-liners maintain over 230 seats, in accordance with an Related Press survey.
A educated pilot, Qalibaf served within the paramilitary Guard through the nation’s bloody Eighties struggle with Iraq. After the battle, he served as the pinnacle of the Guard’s building arm, Khatam al-Anbia, for a number of years main efforts to rebuild.
Qalibaf then served as the pinnacle of the Guard’s air drive, when in 1999 he co-signed a letter to reformist President Mohammad Khatami amid pupil protests in Tehran over the federal government closing a reformist newspaper and a subsequent safety drive crackdown. The letter warned Khatami the Guard would take motion unilaterally except he agreed to placing down the demonstrations.
Violence across the protests noticed a number of killed, tons of wounded and 1000’s arrested.
Qalibaf then served as the pinnacle of Iran’s police, modernizing the drive and implementing the nation’s 110 emergency cellphone quantity. Nonetheless, a leaked recording of a later assembly between Qalibaf and members of the Guard’s volunteer Basij drive, included him claiming that he ordered gunfire be used towards demonstrators in 2003, in addition to praising the violence utilized in Iran’s 2009 Inexperienced Motion protests.
Qalibaf ran failed presidential campaigns in 2005, 2013 and 2017, the final of which noticed him withdraw in assist of the hard-liner Ebrahim Raisi. Raisi later turned president and died within the Might 19 helicopter crash that additionally killed Overseas Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and 6 others.
Iran’s parliament performs a secondary function in governing the nation, although it could possibly intensify stress on a presidential administration when deciding on the annual funds and different necessary payments. Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 85, has the ultimate say in all necessary state issues.
Iran will maintain presidential elections on June 28 to switch Raisi. On Thursday, a five-day registration interval for candidates will open.
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