Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani lost his position as head of an important state clerical body on Tuesday, a move which tightens the hard-liners' grip on power. The defeat for one of the great survivors of Iranian politics since the 1979 Islamic revolution highlighted how even establishment opponents of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are being isolated and sidelined.
It follows reports by relatives of reformist opposition leaders Mirhossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi, denied by the government, that they have been placed in detention at a secret location to stop them orchestrating pro-reform protests inspired by uprisings in the Arab world.
An ambush challenge by arch hardliner Ayatollah Mohammad Reza Mahdavi-Kani forced Rafsanjani to withdraw from running for re-election as chairman of the Assembly of Experts. The 86-member clerical body has the authority to dismiss Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, 71, but it has never exercised that power since it was established in 1983. Rafsanjani, who had chaired the Assembly since 2007, said he had no intention of causing friction at a time when "discord is becoming very serious" in the Islamic state.