Larijani defeats Hadad Adel in Iran`s parliament speaker race

TEHRAN, June 5 (MNA) – Ali Larijani was elected speaker for a one-year time in the new principlist-dominated parliament on Tuesday. Larijani succeeded to win 177 votes out of 270 votes cast in the 290-seat parliament. Gholam-Ali Hadad Adel, the only rival to Larijani, won 89 votes. Four votes were blank. The new parliament was sworn in on May 27. It is the ninth parliament since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Larijani, a lawmaker from the Qom Constituency, held the post of parliament speaker in the eighth parliament. In the eighth parliament the competition was again between Larijani and Hadad Adel. In that competition Larijani won 237 votes. Hadad Adel was parliament speaker in the seventh parliament. Hadad Adel was the chairman of the Majlis Cultural Committee in the previous parliament. Hadad Adel, a cultural figure, won the highest number of votes in the March 2 parliamentary election in Tehran. Deputy speakers Mohammad Hassan Aboutorabifard and Mohammad Reza Bahonar and were also elected as the first and second deputies of the parliament speaker respectively during Tuesday’s session. 232 MPs voted in favor of Aboutorabifard, and 179 lawmakers voted for Bahonar.