The Shark and the Crocodile go head to head today in elections for a clerical assembly empowered to appoint the next supreme leader of Iran.

The animals are the nicknames of two powerful figures vying for control of the panel. The Assembly of Experts has the power to appoint and dismiss Iran’s religious leader and during its next ten-year tenure will likely need to usher in a successor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is 67.

The wider country will be putting the popularity of President Ahmadinejad to the test in today’s municipal elections. The poll is the first since he came to power last year, and reformists are hoping to stage a comeback after their dismal performance in 2003.

In the assembly elections, Iran’s traditionalist old guard is backing Hojatoleslam Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, 72, a pragmatic former president who favoured accommodation with the West. The mid-ranking cleric is nicknamed Kooseh, the Farsi for shark, because of his smooth features, cunning and ambition.

His main rival is Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah- Yazdi, also 72, a radical fundamentalist who regularly rails against the West and is known by his detractors as “Ayatollah Crocodile”. Temsah is the Farsi word for crocodile and a pun on Mesbah. A cartoonist was jailed after once daring to lampoon him as a crocodile shedding false tears in the face of a Western cultural invasion.

Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi has often spoken against democracy, arguing that ultimate authority to rule in Iran is based on God’s will, not the public’s. He once told Friday prayer worshippers: “If someone tells you he has a new interpretation of Islam, sock him in the mouth.”

He is regarded as the spiritual mentor of Mr Ahmadinejad, whose supporters already control most of Iran’s other main institutions.

The 86-member assembly keeps largely out of daily politics, but opponents of Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi fear he may use any gains to make the assembly more active in drafting state policy, to reduce the people’s influence on government and perhaps challenge Ayatollah Khamenei. Ayatollah Khamenei supports Hojatoleslam Rafsanjani, in an apparent attempt to balance the different factions in the assembly and curb the influence of the fundamentalists.

In another blow to the hardliners, the Council of Guardians, a conservative vetting body, disqualified some candidates associated with Ayatollah Mesbah-Yazdi, including his son. Reformists are used to disqualification but the vetting of hardliners is new. It represents a determined effort by Iran’s old guard, which has ruled Iran since 1979, to hold back the younger generation of fundamentalists represented by Mr Ahmadinejad.

Reformists have been out of favour since failing to push through changes when they were in power. Their supporters stayed away from the 2003 elections, handing an easy victory to the hardliners. Mr Ahmadinejad became Mayor of Tehran — and used the position to launch his successful bid for the presidency.

The reformists hope to benefit from Iran’s soaring living costs and Mr Ahmadinejad’s failure to fulfil his election promise of giving the poor a better share of the country’s oil wealth.

A key barometer will be whether they can regain seats on Tehran’s city council. The conservative vote is split by rivalry between the Mayor, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, and allies of Mr Ahmadinejad, whose campaign is called the Sweet Smell of Service, a name that perplexes even Iranians.

Fighting talk

THE SHARK
On reform “If someone tells you he has a new interpretation of Islam, sock him in the mouth"
On the debate over suicide attacks “Instead of planning for the uprooting of the Zionist regime, [Muslims] have occupied themselves with questioning the legitimacy of the Palestinians’ self-defence”

THE CROCODILE
On Israel “We have no problems with Jews and respect Judaism as a holy religion”
On the US “America is a superpower of the world and we cannot ignore them”

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