Tehran (dpa) – Ali Larijani was seen as the right hand of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad when the latter was elected president in 2005. As Ahmadinejad's chief nuclear negotiator, Larijani handled the most sensitive international issue facing the country, but their political liaison only lasted two years and they parted ways owing to “irreconcilable differences.” Larijani then ran for parliament in 2008, securing a landslide victory and becoming speaker of the Iranian parliament. Amid growing differences between parliament and the president – first over economic issues and later political ones as well – he emerged as leader of the anti-Ahmadinejad faction calling itself “principalists” reflecting loyalty to the Islamic establishment. In the 2012 parliamentary elections he led his faction against the presidential wing, securing not only another landslide victory for himself but also for his faction. That may just the beginning of his political journey, with Larijani expected to seek to unseat the president in the 2013 elections, thus putting an end to the Ahmadinejad era. Although he supports the country's nuclear program, Larijani is considered by observers as more willing to compromise than Ahmadinejad in the nuclear dispute with the West. 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 taking his doctorate in philosophy. Larijani's 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). Larijani belongs to the older political generation, is loyal to the principles of the 1979 Islamic revolution and supports the undisputed role of Ayatollah Khamenei as supreme leader. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/LmJ9M Tags: Ahmadinejad, Elections, Larijani, Profile Section: Iran, Latest News
