TEHRAN — Heavyweight politician Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf was reelected as Iran's parliament speaker on Tuesday, a day after the new legislature was inaugurated following a frosty national vote marred by the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic's history. 

In the race for speakership, as reported by the ISNA news agency, Ghalibaf garnered 198 votes from the 287 lawmakers present in the assembly, beating two other rivals, hard-line cleric Mojtaba Zolnouri and former Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki. 

The new parliament is packed with conservatives and is largely a repeat of the previous convocation. Such composition has been linked to the pre-election candidate vetting process at the hands of the Guardian Council, which effectively purged the majority of hopefuls from moderate and reformist political groups.

Yet even near-full control by conservatives has not meant a unanimous assembly, as the elected lawmakers hail from various competing subgroups of hard-liners. In the Tehran constituency, in particular, a new generation of ultraconservatives has been openly challenging Ghalibaf and campaigning to unseat him from speakership, a position which he has won consecutively for the past four years.