IRAN - May 30 - Parliament Appoints Reformist As Speaker.

Parliament elects Mehdi Karrubi, a reformist leader, as temporary parliament speaker - a post he is expected to keep. Tehran radio reports Karrubi won 186 votes from the 252 members of parliament present. The radio says there were 63 abstentions and 3 members did not vote. Reformists Majid Ansari and Abolqassem Sarhadizadeh were elected as temporary vice-speakers to the Parliament, or Majlis. Karrubi, a former speaker who was once a hard-liner, is the only candidate fielded by the reformist camp. The temporary leadership is elected to run parliament before a final decision is made once the legislature is fully operating on June. (The speaker holds the No. 3 position in Iran after the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamen'i, and Pres. Khatami. He is a member of the National Security Council and the Constitutional Review Council. Hard-liners, who lost control of the Majlis for the 1st time since the 1979 Islamic revolution, had been planning to push for their candidate, former Pres. Rafsanjani. But Rafsanjani resigned from parliament, on May 25, after facing stiff opposition from reformist groups. The parliament is expected to be the new arena for the ongoing power struggle between the hard-liners and reformists who back Khatami's social, political and cultural reforms. Khamen'i and the hard-liners, who still wield considerable power, cite Islam to oppose the reforms.)