The run-off in Iran’s parliamentary elections seems to have given Hassan Rouhani, the centrist president, a workable parliamentary majority if his followers combine with reformists and independent conservatives against Islamist hardliners. The outcome also appears to endorse last year’s deal between Iran and world powers, which traded economic sanctions relief for restraints on Tehran’s nuclear programme. The president should now be better placed to enact some of the economic reforms to attract the investment Iran desperately needs. Ultimate power, however, still rests with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, and theocratic institutions that answer to him, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the judiciary. Yet Mr Rouhani’s coalition did exceptionally well in February’s elections to the Assembly of Experts, the body that will select the next supreme leader. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president who came first in that contest and a key Rouhani ally, has been floating the idea that next time round the assembly might choose a leadership council rather than a single leader — and dilute theocratic power.