CNN,  Tehran, Iran, March 8, 2011  — Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani has been replaced as head of the powerful committee charged with electing and removing the leader of the Islamic Revolution and supervising his activities, Iran’s government-backed Press TV reported Tuesday.
Rafsanjani did not run for re-election, the report said.
Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi Kani was elected the head of Iran’s Assembly of Experts, Press TV said.
The semi-official Mehr news agency reported that Rafsanjani withdrew as a candidate after Kani announced he was running. Kani won 63 out of a possible 86 votes, Press TV said.
Rafsanjani, a powerful cleric, has been one of the government’s most vocal critics, but in the past year has toned down attacks and made statements of apparent support of the regime and the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
He lost a bid to regain the presidency in 2005, being upset by the current president, hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
It’s not clear why Rafsanjani dropped out of the race to retain chairmanship of the Assembly of Experts but his stepping aside will be viewed as a setback for Iran’s opposition movement and reformists.
In recent months, hardliners had been calling for him to be replaced.
Although Rafsanjani had no official links to Iran’s opposition movement, he was viewed as a key figure in the movement’s uprising after the disputed presidential elections in 2009.
He has long been a staunch critic and bitter political rival of Ahmadinejad.
Weeks after the 2009 elections, Rafsanjani condemned the regime’s violent crackdown against the opposition movement and spoke out for the people’s right to peacefully protest in a speech delivered at Tehran’s Friday prayers.
His daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, has been detained twice for taking part in anti-government protests.
During the past year, Rafsanjani has clearly decided to step out of the conflict between the regime and the opposition movement.
The Assembly of Experts is charged with overseeing the supreme leader and choosing his replacement. Rafsanjani will remain a member of the assembly, just not its chair.
Rafsanjani served two terms as president from, 1989 to 1997, and is still widely believed to be one of the wealthiest and most politically powerful men in Iran.