Rafsanjani to Lead Key Iranian Panel

TEHRAN, Sept. 4 -- Former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was picked Tuesday to head a key clerical body empowered with choosing or dismissing the country's supreme leader, state media reported, in a vote seen as a setback for hard-liners in Iran's ruling establishment.

Rafsanjani, long a major player in Iran's complex political scene who already heads a powerful government body called the Expediency Council, received 41 votes to become the chairman of the Assembly of Experts.

The assembly is a group of 86 senior clerics who monitor the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and choose his successor. The Expediency Council arbitrates between legislators and another influential body, the Guardian Council, a hard-line constitutional watchdog.

The 73-year-old former president is considered more moderate than current hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Rafsanjani defeated Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, an extremist within the hard-line camp who received 34 votes for the Assembly of Experts leadership, state-run television reported.

Analysts said Tuesday's vote showed that moderate conservatives were gaining ground in Iran, where there is growing discontent directed at the ruling hard-liners over rising tensions with the West and a worsening economy.