TEHRAN (FNA)- The Principlist camp won the first major rivalry with the reformists at the Iranian parliament after their nominee Ali Larijani was once again elected as the speaker of the legislature on Sunday.
Larijani won the post after earning 173 votes and defeated the reformists' candidate Mohammad Reza Aref who could win 103 votes. 5 lawmakers abstained.
Aref represented the coalition of the reformists and moderates - the pro-Rouhani camp - who allied to defeat the Principlists in the February election. The Reformoderates claimed to have won the majority of the seats after election results were announced in February, but the election today proved otherwise.
The 10th round of the Iranian parliament started work on Saturday with a message from Supreme Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei.
The Reformoderates experienced another defeat a few days ago, when their candidate to chair the highly important Experts Assembly vetting body was badly defeated by the most famous figure of the Principlist camp Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati.
Ayatollah Jannati was elected as the new head of Iran's Assembly of Experts, which is in charge of electing the country's Supreme Leader, with 51 votes cast in his favor on Tuesday.
Ayatollah Jannati had a rather easy rivalry with the other two candidates, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, a former judiciary chief, and Ayatollah Ebrahim Amini, Tehran's representative at the Assembly of Experts, who earned 13 and 21 votes, respectively.
Ayatollah Amini, who had the support of Ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and President Hassan Rouhani as two renowned figures of the assembly, was the choice of the reformoderates.
