Tehran, July 20: Iran's largest pro-reform party, the Islamic Iran Participation Front (IIPF), has re-elected President Mohammad Khatami's younger brother as its leader, press reports said today.
Mohammad-Reza Khatami was elected by the party's central council during the three-day party general assembly meeting in Tehran which ended yesterday, the reformist ‘Hambastegi’ paper reported. He gained 90 percent of the votes and will serve as the IIPF's secretary general for two years, it said. A total of 290 delegates attended the IIPF meeting which launched a "plan for action" for future elections in the remaining three years of President Khatami's second and last tenure.
Iran's vice president Mohammad-Reza Aref, education minister Morteza Haji, energy minister Habibollah Bitaraf and female Tehran MP Fatemeh Haqiqatjoo did not register as new candidates and are no longer members of the party's central council.
"It is noteworthy that while the presence of members of President Khatami's cabinet has diminished in the party's central council, the number of MPs has increased," the ‘Tosseh’ paper said in a commentary today.
Among other candidates re-elected to the council is Saeed Hajarian, a close advisor of the president who survived an assassination attempt more than two years ago.

The IIPF, which was set up in 1998, and the nation's reformers are under unprecedented pressure from conservatives, whose press has been targetting the party's number two top official, Mohammad Naimipour, a Tehran deputy.
Bureau Report