TEHRAN, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, apparently trying to reduce the control of fundamentalists, is backing a former president in a key election.
The ayatollah's support of the decision of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was known as a pragmatic president, to stand in next month's election for the Assembly of Experts, is also seen as part of the top cleric's effort to secure a balance among the different factions in the 86-member body, reports the Financial Times. The assembly is responsible for choosing and supervising the supreme leader.
Khamenei also supports President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who defeated Rafsanjani in last year's presidential election. Since then, Rafsanjani and his supporters have been described as abusing Iran's oil wealth, says the report.
However, under mounting pressure from international community against Ahmadinejad's persistence on going ahead with Iran's uranium enrichment program, Khamenei reportedly wants to rein in the fundamentalist radicals including Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, who is believed to be influencing the president, says the report.
"The supreme leader (previously) stopped reformists from going too far left, as he will stop fundamentalists from going too far right," one official told the newspaper.
