TEHRAN – A number of MPs have backed reelection of the current Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani as the leader of the parliament’s principlist majority faction.

Discussions over Larijani’s front leadership surfaced as some pro-government lawmakers have signaled of attempts to unseat Larijani.
Tehran MP Seyed Reza Akarami has ruled out chances that anyone else except the current speaker to be elected as the majority faction leader.
So far, no plans have been made by the principlists to unseat Larijani from the faction’s leadership, the cleric MP told the Mehr News Agency on Saturday.
“The principlist faction is against any plan to replace Larijani as the leader of the principlist faction,” said Akrami, who is a senior member of the principlist Society of Combatant Clerics.
Akrami further stated that he personally endorses Larijani as the leader of the faction.
“Larijani has no intention of leaving the principlist faction’s leadership and most of the principlists at the parliament consider him as the best option for leading the majority principlist faction.”
He said, members of the principlist faction themselves decided to nominate Larijani as the leader of the faction in order to strengthen the faction’s position and Larijani was elected with the majority of the votes.
The lawmaker said Larijani has left a glittering record as the faction’s leader.
Meanwhile Hassan Zamani, an advisor to the parliament speaker, dispelled the possibility that Larijani would resign from the leadership of the faction.
“No decision has been made to separate the position of leadership of the principlist faction from the post of parliament speaker. Taking any such decisions is within the jurisdiction of the (faction’s) general assembly,” Zamani told the MNA.
Mohammad Reza Mirtajaldini, a member of the central council of Majlis principlist bloc, has said there would be a vote on Monday for electing the members of the faction’s presiding board.
Mirtajaldini who is also a member of the parliament’s presiding board told the MNA that if members of the central council decide to separate the position of the leadership of the faction from that of the speaker of the parliament there would be candidates to fill the post, otherwise Larijani would remain both as the speaker of the parliament and the leader of the faction.
As to the possibility of nominating former Parliament Speaker Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel as the faction leader, he said Haddad-Adel has refused to run for the post.
Larijani is the chairman of the Majlis cultural committee in the sitting parliament