PROFILE: Ali Larijani - New strong man in Iran's parliament

May 27, 2008, 11:34 GMT

Tehran - With his imminent election as speaker of the Iranian parliament Ali Larijani will not only become the head of the legislature but also the main challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Larijani was born in 1958 in the southern Iraqi city of Najaf where his cleric father worked as a lawyer. In Tehran he graduated in computer sciences and mathematics before obtaining a doctorate in philosophy.

Larijani's main political career started in the mid 1980s as culture minister under president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani. In 1994, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei made him head of the state television network IRIB. A decade later, Khamenei appointed him as his advisor in the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC).

An opponent of the reform movement led by president Mohammad Khatami, Larijani ran in the 2005 presidential elections but failed to make it into the second round. Nevertheless, election winner Ahmadinejad appointed him secretary of the SNSC and chief nuclear negotiator.

Despite taking a tough stance in negotiations with European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana, Larijani sought to avoid an escalation of the nuclear row with the West.

In October 2005, he resigned because of differences with Ahmadinejad over the handling of the nuclear issue, which had in the meantime led to three UN Security Council resolutions against Iran and pushed the Islamic state towards international isolation.

After his resignation, Larijani became a critic of the president. Following his landslide win in the March parliamentary elections, he became leader of a new conservative faction whose members used to support Ahmadinejad but who had gradually distanced themselves from him.

Larijani was eventually elected in an internal meeting as parliament speaker for the new legislative period. Following the failure of the pro-Khatami reformist wing, he has also emerged as an alternative to the president.

Although ideologically on the same wavelength as Ahmadinejad - loyal to Islam and the country's clergy system - he is considered a symbol of the new and more moderate political wave with whom the West could at least engage in a dialogue.

Larijani is also expected by analysts to be the main challenger of Ahmadinejad in the next presidential elections scheduled for June 2009.