Top conservative figure reelected Iran’s parliament speaker

By Syed Zafar Mehdi

TEHRAN, Iran (AA) – Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has been elected speaker of Iran’s parliament for a one-year term, a day after the newly elected legislative body held its first session.

During a special parliamentary session on Tuesday, Ghalibaf received 198 votes. Other candidates, Mojtaba Zonnour received 60 votes and Manoucher Mottaki received five votes.

Ghalibaf and Mottaki were elected to the new Iranian parliament, known in Persian as the “Majlis,” from Tehran, while Zonnour was elected from the central Iranian city of Qom.

Senior lawmakers Hamidreza Haji Babaei and Ali Nikzad were appointed as the first and second deputy parliament speakers, respectively.

Ghalibaf also served as a speaker in the previous Iranian parliament, between 2020 and 2024.

A high-profile conservative political figure and a former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Ghalibaf has held many important administrative roles in the past.

He served as Iran’s police chief between 2000 and 2005. In 2005, he was elected Tehran mayor and served in that position until 2017.

Ghalibaf has also contested presidential elections on several occasions. In the 2013 presidential election, he lost to Hassan Rouhani and finished second.

In the 2017 presidential election, he filed his candidacy again but eventually withdrew in favor of Ebrahim Raisi, who also lost the election to Rouhani.

In the 2021 presidential election, he decided not to contest and backed the candidacy of Raisi, who won by a landslide and formed a government of conservatives.

There have been speculations that Ghalibaf could be a likely contender for the president as Iran heads to a snap vote next month following the death of President Raisi in a helicopter crash.

However, it remains to be seen whether he will retain the position of parliament speaker or enter the presidential race.

In his message to the new Iranian parliament on Monday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for further strengthening the “religious democracy” through the work of the legislature.

In the parliamentary elections held last month, conservative candidates secured most of the seats and maintained their firm grip over the country’s top legislative body.

The voting in the first round was held on April 1, and results were announced two days later, marked by a record-low turnout. The run-off election was held earlier this month.

More than 15,000 candidates vied for 290 seats in the parliament, while 144 candidates ran for the 88-member clerical body, the Assembly of Experts, which appoints the country’s supreme leader.