LONDON, April 1 (UPI) -- As parliamentary elections in Iran confirm a vast majority for the hard-liners in Iran, jostling seems to have already gained pace for Iran's presidential elections in 2009. However, pressure on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has grown more forceful from within his own camp rather than the so-called reformists whose campaign was crushed by the vast disqualification of their candidates in the March 14 parliamentary polls.

The divide between the hard-liners is now evident. Many from that camp are unhappy with much of the tactics used by Ahmadinejad and decided to run on a separate slate to that of the president. This group of candidates contained two heavyweights in Iranian politics, Ali Larijani, Iran's former nuclear negotiator, and Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, Tehran's mayor. Both Qalibaf and Larijani may well have ambitions of running for president in 2009. However, both know full well that any chance of success in those elections lies solely with Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

In fact, it is Khamenei whose control of Iran's political sphere has been considerably strengthened by this clear divide among Iran's hard-liners. The man who has spearheaded Iran's revolution since the death of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1989 now finds himself in a position of undoubted control.

Throughout the years, the supreme leader has controlled much of Iranian life. He acts as commander in chief of Iran's armed forces. However, more significantly he controls Iran's infamous Basij force as well as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps -- two groups specifically created to preserve the Islamic revolution in Iran. It is the IRGC in which Khamenei has placed great trust over recent years with the IRGC now controlling much of Iran's economy.

Khamenei is no longer the distant religious figure he once was, but the man now in control of Iran. This fact has not been lost on Iran's potential presidential candidates, with all now vying for Khamenei's support at next year's presidential polls.