Ali Khamenei: The hard-liner

(CNN) -- Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was elected successor to the late Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the country's Islamic revolution, in 1989. Khamenei is widely considered a religious hard-liner and wields significant political and religious power in modern-day Iran.

Under the country's constitution, Khamenei can dismiss the president, and Khamenei is said to preside over what effectively amounts to a parallel government, made up of conservative-minded advisers, who shadow President Khatami's ministers.

Observers say that hard-liner Khamenei and the reform-minded president are involved in a power struggle that could have significant consequences for the social and political development of the country.

"Khatami won only the presidential election, that's all," Ebrahim Yazdi, a liberal opposition leader, commented after Khatami's election in 1997. "The extreme right lost the election but they control all the powers: parliament, radio and television, the security forces, the supreme leader's institutions, the Friday prayers preachers."

But in February 2000, reformists delivered another stunning defeat to right-wing conservatives by capturing the largest share of the 290 seats in the Parliament, or Majlis.

Yet Khamenei still enjoys direct control of the Intelligence Ministry, the judiciary, the armed forces, the broadcast network and the support of what, in western lingo, could be described as "big business." These are economically very strong revolutionary foundations that pay no taxes and answer directly to Khamenei.

This power on the domestic front is paralleled by Khamenei's influence in foreign policies. Khamenei has the last word on foreign policy, said Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati during the May 1997 presidential election campaign. Khamenei also said at the time that the mere mention of improving ties with the United States -- the very strategy that Khatami appears to be following now -- would be political suicide.

While Khamenei enjoys the support of powerful elites in the country, President Khatami has the support of the masses who elected him -- particularly young voters, many of whom were born after the Islamic revolution and never experienced life under the U.S.-backed Shah.

Bit hard-liners such as Khamenei are not expected to let power simply slip from their hands, and many Iranians are said to fear a hard-line backlash against the moderate liberalization evident under Khatami.

More newspapers and magazines have been authorized since Khatami's election, and there is now a broader spectrum of opinion on offer. Ministers are talking of allowing international investment in the onshore oil and gas industry -- a topic which had long been taboo.

In a landmark visit, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi met with British Prime Minister Tony Blair in early January. Kharrazi's trip to London was aimed at strengthening a cautious rapprochement between Britain and Khatami and ending Iran's political and economic isolation from Europe.

The meeting was the first high-level contacts in 20 years. Relations between Iran and the United Kingdom were severed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the siege at the Iranian Embassy in London in 1980.

But while Khamenei is said to be opposed to much of this liberalization, some analysts believe that he is also a man who may be politically savvy enough to read the signs of the times, which clearly indicate that much of the Iranian population is fed up with rising prices and high unemployment.

Khamenei may therefore realize, some say, that it is in his and the influential clergy's interest to allow a controlled, gradual economic and political liberalization, rather than risk a social explosion.

Khamenei may also realize that he himself is not an uncontroversial figure, and clearly has some political enemies. Khamenei lacks Khomeini's charisma and learning, and his legitimacy has been challenged both by veteran Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, who was sacked as Khomeini's anointed successor after he criticized human rights abuses, and by dissident philosopher Abdolkarim Soroush, who advocates separating mosque and state.