Ali Larijani re-elected as Iran’s Parliament Speaker

TEHRAN (Defapress) – In an open session of the Parliament on Wednesday morning, Iranian lawmakers held an election to appoint the Parliament Speaker.

During the polls, Ali Larijani won 147 votes out of 270 valid votes and his rival Mohammad-Reza Aref.

His initial rivals were the reformist lawmaker Mohammad-Reza Aref and the conservative MP Hamid-Reza Haji Babaei. In the first round of the election, Aref secured 114 votes, Larijani 101 votes, and Haji Babaei 54 votes, but none of them won the majority of the votes, leading the election to a run-off.

For the second round, Haji Babaei withdrew his candidacy in favour of Larijani, and that helped the latter secure the majority of votes in the run-off. 123 lawmakers voted for Aref in the second round, according to IFP.

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