Iran ? A former Iranian leader who is considered an opponent of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was far ahead in the race for a seat on a powerful clerical body, according to partial election results reported by state-run television Sunday.

Hashemi Rafsanjani had more than 1.5 million votes for a seat in the Assembly of Experts, a body of 86 senior clerics that monitors Iran’s supreme leader and chooses his successor, state TV said. His main rival, Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi Mesbah Yazdi, had about 860,000 votes.

The TV station did not report the percentage of votes each candidate received in Friday’s election. Final results were not expected until today or later.