Power struggle said ongoing in Iran

TEHRAN, June 16 (UPI) -- A power struggle is taking place between Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, and former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, analysts say.

Khamenei endorsed incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the presidential race against reformer prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, supported by Rafsanjani. Ahmadinejad won a lopsided victory, the government said, but the official results provoked widespread protests and accusations of fraud.

Like Mousavi, Rafsanjani is one of the old guard of the 1979 revolution, al-Jazeera said, and one of the richest men in Iran.

The post-election dispute "represents the conflict between two schools of thought in Iran," Mahjoob Zweiri, a professor in Middle East politics at the University of Jordan, told al-Jazeera. "The first one, which is represented by the supreme leader, says Iran should stay a revolutionary state, and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani wants the state to move on, to become a modern state, a pragmatic state. This is actually the root of the conflict we are seeing in the streets of Tehran."