Iranian clerics pick hard-liner as new head of clerical body

TEHRAN - Members of Iran's most influential clerical body charged with choosing or dismissing the nation's supreme leader have elected a hard-line ayatollah as their new chairman, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported Tuesday.

Mohammad Yazdi, the deputy chairman of the 86-member Assembly of Experts, got 47 votes in his favor from among 73 clerics who attended the session.

Yazdi's election follows the death last October of the former chairman, Mohammadreza Mahdavi Kani.

The assembly monitors Iran's supreme leader and picks a successor after his death, but does not involve itself in daily affairs.