TEHRAN: A hardline Iranian cleric who has been in the country’s power structure since its 1979 Islamic Revolution was chosen on Tuesday to lead the Assembly of Experts, a clerical body that picks the country’s next supreme leader.

The selection of 89-year-old Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, an ultraconservative who called for the execution of opposition activists after Iran’s disputed 2009 election and asked Iraqis to be suicide bombers against US forces in Iraq in 2003, signals the power hardliners still wield in Iran despite a recent nuclear deal with world powers.

In Tuesday’s vote, Jannati received the backing of 55 members of the 88-seat Assembly and beat two other candidates for the post of speaker, moderate Ebrahim Amini and conservative Mahmoud Hashemi Sharoudi. He will serve as the body’s speaker for two years.

Influential moderate Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a former president who has helmed the Assembly in the past, did not offer himself as a candidate in the voting.

Moderate President Hassan Rouhani, whose administration secured the nuclear deal last year, also is a member of the Assembly. After the vote, Jannati reiterated recent comments by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the Assembly should remain “revolutionary,” state TV reported.

“I hope to work in a way that leads to happiness of the almighty God, the supreme leader and the people,” Jannati said. Clerics in the 88-seat Assembly serve eight-year terms in the body after being elected by popular vote.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2016