Hard-line former Tehran mayor named Iran parliament speaker

Iran’s parliament voted Thursday to elect a hard-line former mayor of Tehran as the legislative body’s new speaker.
Iranian state television said Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf had been elected during a parliamentary session. It said 230 lawmakers voted for him, without saying how many of the body’s 290 legislators voted against him.
Qalibaf was one of the challengers to President Hassan Rouhani in Iran’s 2017 presidential election.
Qalibaf served in Iran’s Revolutionary Guard during the country’s bloody 1980s war with Iraq. After the conflict, he served as the head of the Guard’s construction arm, Khatam Al-Anbia, for several years.