Iran Reformist Regains Influence (Rafsanjani)

Iran's moderate former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has won election to Iran's powerful clerical body, the Assembly of Experts, results show. With more than half the votes counted, Mr Rafsanjani, who was defeated in the 2005 presidential election, had a clear lead at the top of the list.

The election - and simultaneous local polls - was seen as a test of support for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Displaying what correspondents describe as a new lease of political life, Mr Rafsanjani led the poll with 1.3 million votes as counting continued.

* Iranians are voting in two sets of elections Assembly of Experts poll: Powerful clerical body which supervises the Supreme Leader
* Local council polls: More than 250,000 candidates for around 100,000 seats nationwide
* 46.5 million eligible voters

His main rival, Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi - seen as a political mentor to President Ahmadinejad - is trailing in sixth place, but with enough votes to retain a seat on the Assembly of Experts.

Mr Rafsanjani's strong performance has exceeded his supporters' expectations after his humiliating defeat in 2005, the BBC's Sadeq Saba in Tehran says.

The assembly of 86 theologians supervises the activities of Iran's supreme leader and chooses his successor when he dies.

Mr Rafsanjani's success was helped by an unexpectedly high turnout and by a new alliance between him and the reformists, our correspondent says

I had no idea Iran was such a democracy!! I thought the only one was in Isreal. I was sooo wrong.

Democracy? I hope you are kidding and not taken in by a totally false process, where candidates have to pass the religious and pious "sniff test" as we call it here for liberal and conservative ideology. If not they are NOT allowed to participate or run.

They held twin elections at the same time so that people who needed to be involved for their local city council members would come out and vote at all in the Assembly of Experts elections - about which they could not care less.

They were encouraged to come out and vote by Supreme Rules Ali Khamenei - "EVEN IF YOU CAST A BLANK VOTE". He wanted numbers to show to the Western world and hopefully has not thus fooled people like you in the process.

He quite coldly removed/banned lots of candidates who favored Ahmadi-Nejad's mentor Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi. A cleric who might soon replace him.

For Khamenei, Rafsanjani was the lesser of two evils and less powerful an enemy.

But at the end of the day, to use their nicknames, Rafsanjani, known as the Shark was going up against Mesbah Yazdi, known as the Crocodile.

Shark versus Crocodile describes the two men and the situation very well. No Democracy here!

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